THE SILENT 
SHAKESPEARE 



ROBERT FRAZER 



(lass 
Book 







The 

Silent Shakespeare 



BY 

ROBERT FRAZER 



Philadelphia 

William J. Campbell 

1915 



A 



NNi 



CONTENTS 

Introductory 7 

Will Shakspere 18 

Venus, Lucrece and the Sonnets 75 

The First Folio 110 

Multiple Authorship 137 

Old English Terence 167 

The Silent Shakespeare 195 



2 



85 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

"To the great Variety of Readers." 

Folio of 1623. 

In presenting the results of several years 
of preparation, the writer desires to acknowl- 
edge his indebtedness to the large body of 
investigators, from Malone to Halliwell- 
Phillipps, who have ransacked libraries and 
garrets for new light upon the subject of this 
sketch. To many of these something is 
owing, and frequent mention of authorities 
has been made in the text. But since it is 
clearly impracticable to trace, in every case, 
the source from which a suggestion has been 
received, this general acknowledgment is 
made, with the hope that no reference of 
importance has been omitted. 

In the matter of accepting the statements 
of writers on this subject, it has been found 
necessary to exercise caution; a single in- 
stance will serve as an illustration. The 
present writer has insisted that Shakespeare's 
death attracted little attention; a point of 
3 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

some importance, as it testifies to the insig- 
nificance of the man. 

As to this matter, we find the ingenuous 
Sir Sidney Lee, a modern pillar of the Strat- 
fordian theory, with a different purpose in 
mind, making the following remarkable 
statement : 

"When Shakespeare lay dead in the 
spring of 1616 * * the flood of pane- 
gyrical lamentation poured forth in a new 
flood. One of the earliest of the elegies was 
a sonnet by William Basse * * This fine 
sentiment found many a splendid echo. It 
resounded in Ben Jonson's noble lines pre- 
fixed to the First Folio of 1623 * * Mil- 
ton qualified the conceit a few years later, 
in 1630 * * Such was the invariable 
temper in which literary men gave vent to 
their grief on learning the death of the 'be- 
loved author,' &c." 
— Great Englishmen of the XVIth Century, 

pp 279-81. 

Here is a very flagrant instance of the 
method of the suggestio falsi. The casual 
4 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

reader will accept the statement that a flood 
of lamentation poured forth in "the spring 
of 1616," when literary men "learned the 
death of the beloved author," without noting 
that actually the flood of 1616 consisted of 
a sonnet by Basse, which did not appear 
before 1622, of the introductory matter to the 
folio of 1623, of which more will be said 
later, and of Milton's verses, in 1630, when 
he learned of the death of the "beloved 
author." 

However, we can forgive Lee for this 
sort of work, in consideration of his un- 
wearying research, which produced, for ex- 
ample, his identification of the "Mr. W. H." 
of the dedication to the Sonnets with one 
William Hall. 

Except in the arrangement and interpre- 
tation of the data which are the common 
property of all, there is nothing new in the 
following pages. Against the Hathaway 
marriage, the vital absence of any mention 
of it in the records of Stratford church, and 
the remarriage of Mrs. Shakespeare after 
5 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

1616, are insisted on. The interpretation 
of Heywood's protest against the insertion 
of his sonnets in the Passionate Pilgrim is 
perhaps new; and I have not seen the point 
made that Will Shakspere, whose patron 
was Lord Strange, could hardly have dedi- 
cated the Venus and the Lucrece to another 
than his patron. 

Perhaps, too, the part that I have as- 
signed to Will Shakspere in the composi- 
tion of the plays, is more or less new. So far 
as I know, it has never been seriously main- 
tained that his share in the work was a 
minor one. Stratfordians are satisfied with 
nothing less than to credit him with all that 
is fine in the plays; and Baconians will not 
allow that he had any part whatever in them. 

The presentation of this theory is the 
principal object and excuse for these essays. 
Philadelphia, 1915. Robert Frazer. 



CHAPTER I 
INTRODUCTORY 

No self-respecting Shakespearean scholar 
permits himself to refer to the so-called 
"Shakespeare problem" otherwise than in 
terms of concentrated scorn. 

Preferably he ignores its existence. This 
is natural and inevitable. Eyes that have 
been straining at a microscope do not at once 
recover their ordinary focus; and the close 
study of a subject induces affection for the 
traditions and prejudices which may be en- 
tangled in it, as well as for its vital truths. 

In this way an unreasoning reverence has 
grown up for the mere name Shakespeare, 
even as though the poet had never written 
"that which we call a rose, by any other word 
would smell as sweet." 

There really is a Shakespeare problem, 

and the attitude of these scholars does not at 

once dispose of it. A large and increasing 

number of sensible persons now doubt that 

7 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

the actor was the author. That doubt would 
be converted into certainty could a satisfac- 
tory answer be found to the question; who, 
then, is the author, if not Will Shakspere? 

An extraordinarily silent man was this 
Will Shakspere, and his contemporaries 
have repaid him in kind. No letters, diaries 
or memoirs of the day exist to tell us of his 
personal history. What we know of him has 
been gleaned from public records. From 
these indeed, we know a good deal about 
him; his surroundings, his occupations, 
interests, acquaintances and acts; and from 
such we are enabled to form an opinion as 
to his character. 

The only other sources of information 
open to us, aside from a number of unveri- 
fiable traditions, are the writings attributed 
to him. From them inferences may be drawn 
as to the character, and to a less extent, to 
the personal history of the author. This mine 
has been thoroughly worked by scholars, to 
their own great satisfaction; and we thus 
discover that the author was a man of great 
8 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

literary industry, with an intense apprecia- 
tion of nature; of aristocratic tendencies, with 
a touch of the Romeo in him; a philosopher 
who looked upon this world as a phantasma- 
goria; a writer of vast intellect, soaring 
imagination and profundity of insight; and 
one, moreover, whose life was one of extraor- 
dinary intellectual and spiritual growth. 

Such are the conclusions reached by 
scholars like Professor David Masson, and 
by the editors of the Tudor Shakespeare. It 
is painful to have to record the fact that the 
character thus synthetically constructed is 
wholly and ludicrously unlike the character 
of Will Shakspere, as revealed to us by the 
external facts of his life. 

Almost in our own day Emerson voiced 
his perplexity over this discordance in no un- 
certain phrase. He notes that Shakespeare 
found a great body of plays in existence, and 
used whatever he found ; he quotes Malone to 
the effect that out of 6,043 lines in the three 
parts of Henry VI, only 1,899 are original 
with Shakespeare. He calls attention to the 
9 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

fact that Bacon never mentioned Shake- 
speare, and that Sir Henry Wotton, only four 
years Shakspere's junior, and surviving 
him twenty-three years, did not include him 
in his long list of acquaintances and cor- 
respondents. He continues : 

"He was a good-natured sort of 
man, an actor and shareholder in the 
theatres, not in any striking manner 
distinguished from other actors and 
managers." 

"The Egyptian verdict of the 
Shakespeare societies comes to mind, 
that he was a jovial actor and man- 
ager. I cannot marry this fact to his 
verse. Other admirable men have led 
lives in some sort of keeping with 
their thought; but this man in wide 
contrast. It must go into the world's 
history that the best poet led an ob- 
scure and profane life, using his 
genius for the public amusement." 
Mr. Edwin Reed has collected and pub- 
lished, in "Noteworthy Opinions," a long 
10 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

list of doubters, many of them men whose 
prominence entitles their words to respectful 
consideration. From among many others, I 
take these: 

A W. von Schlegel 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge 

Lord Byron 

Henry Hallam 

Lord Palmerston 

Cardinal Newman 

James Russell Lowell 

Charles Dickens 

Walt Whitman 

John G. Whittier. 

Wm. H. Furness said: 

"I am one of the many who have 

never been able to bring the life of 

William Shakespeare and the plays 

of William Shakespeare within a 

planetary space of each other." 

Disraeli put the following into the mouth 

of one of the characters in his novel of 

Venetia : 

"And who is Shakespeare? We 
11 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

know as much of him as we do of 

Homer. Did he write half of the 

plays attributed to him? Did he ever 

write a single whole play? I doubt 

it. He appears to me to have been an 

inspired adapter for the theatres, 

which were then not as good as barns. 

I take him to have been a botcher up 

of old plays." 

This, then, is the first phase of the 

Shakespeare problem, which deals with the 

extreme unfitness of Will Shakspere for 

the role of the greatest dramatic genius of 

all time. 

The second phase of the question has to 
do with the composite authorship of the 
plays, in which we note a mass of incon- 
gruities, manifested most glaringly, perhaps, 
in the juxtaposition of passages of extreme 
beauty, with scenes of intolerable and irrele- 
vant buffoonery. 

Long ago the keen, critical eye of Vol- 
taire detected these anomalies, and although 
he felt and expressed his admiration for 
12 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Shakespeare as "an amazing genius" and 
was the first to introduce his works to Con- 
tinental readers, he did not hesitate to stig- 
matize him as a "drunken savage" and an 
"indecent buffoon." 

These deformities in the plays were felt 
very strongly by the historian Hume, and 
doubtless were the basis for his much abused 
criticism of Shakespeare writings. 

Considered as a man, educated in the 
lowest manner, he concedes him to be a 
Prodigy; while as a poet, he severely criti- 
cises his irregularities and absurdities, and 
his inability to uphold for any time, a rea- 
sonable propriety. 

May we not allow that there exists some 
ground for such verdicts, which were deliv- 
ered before the present age of indiscriminate 
admiration of the plays? 

Gilbert Murray probably represents the 

views of a majority of modern scholars in 

holding that the Homeric poems were the 

work of many poets, whose songs were ulti- 

13 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

mately collected and set to the "Tale of 
Troy," and, like the poems of Homer, and 
like the Hebrew Scriptures, the plays of 
Shakespeare seem to be the work of many 
writers in many revisions. 

Taking this view, it will be the purpose 
of the present writer to maintain that the 
poems known as Shakespeare's were not 
written by the man of Stratford ; and that the 
dramas known as Shakespeare's were not 
his, either, but had their origin, in great part, 
in old plays which were worked over by many 
minds, produced before many audiences, and 
enlarged and amended as experience direct- 
ed, before they were crystallized in the folio 
of 1623; and that in all this labor Will 
Shakspere had a minor, although a definite, 
share. 

In entering upon the subject, mention 
must be made of the Baconian theory, as 
it has greatly aided in stimulating interest 
in the question. Although Baconians have 
failed to convince the world that Bacon was 
the great dramatist, they have pretty thor- 
14 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

oughly demolished the claims made on be- 
half of Will Shakspere. 

The writer holds that probability is 
against the truth of the Baconian theory; that 
the arguments upon which it rests, founded 
upon ciphers and symbols ; upon parallelisms 
and allusions, howsoever specious they may 
be, are in the final analysis, unconvincing. 

The fact is that the strongest ground 
upon which Bacon's name can be urged, is 
the assumption that he was the only man in 
England at the time who was capable of pro- 
ducing a dramatic masterpiece. 

This is an error — a galaxy of literary 
geniuses then lived in London, several of 
whom closely approached the Shakespearean 
standard of excellence. 

There were Beaumont and Fletcher; 
George Chapman, Michael Drayton, Chris- 
topher Marlowe and John Webster, for ex- 
ample. Some were gentleman's sons and Uni- 
versity men; many of them had traveled on 
the Continent; witness Thomas Carew, 
15 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Samuel Daniel, who was poet laureate; Rob- 
ert Greene and Thomas Nash. 

There were lawyers also among the 
dramatists of that wonderful period; John 
Ford, Thomas Lodge and John Marston, 
among the number. Thus, the argument for 
Bacon, based on the law in the plays, which 
is one of the pillars of the cause, is incon- 
clusive. It is good as against Will Shak- 
spere, but it does not prove Bacon's author- 
ship. 

Nothing in Bacon's personal character, 
and nothing in the pedantic and obscure 
style of his acknowledged writings, is sug- 
gestive of Shakespeare. 

Bacon so distrusted the future of the Eng- 
lish language that he went to the extreme 
length of translating, non sine lahore, his 
philosophical writings into Latin, in order 
to preserve them for posterity ; thus discard- 
ing the most vigorous and adaptable medium 
the world has ever known, to embalm his 
works in the stiff wrappings of a dead lan- 
guage. 

16 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Now the Shakespeare writers had a 
clearer foresight. 

Bacon died rather foolishly of a cold 
which he contracted while stuffing a chicken 
with snow. History does not state what was 
the object of this abstruse experiment. Did 
Bacon expect the snow to cook the chicken? 
Probably not — and yet, for a man who had 
spent sixty-five years in study; and more 
particularly for a man who had taken all 
knowledge for his province, it seems to have 
been a singularly futile proceeding. 

It is not unlikely that some of the writ- 
ings now accredited to Shakespeare were 
Bacon's, but for a satisfactory solution of 
the problem, we must look elsewhere. 

There were, of course, men, or there was 
a man, to whom we must give the name 
Shake-speare ; Mr. Lang, gently ironical, 
christens him the "Great Unknown" ; I prefer 
to call him the Silent Shakespeare. 



17 



CHAPTER II 
WILL SHAKSPERE. 

The material that we possess for a life of 
Shakspere consists of municipal records and 
of records of the theatrical company to which 
he belonged. We have no account of his lit- 
erary or social life; and if we were to draw 
the usual conclusions from the absence of his 
name in the memoirs and correspondence of 
the day, we should have to believe that 
Shakspere had no part in the great social 
world, and no friendships outside of the 
narrow circle of his fellow-actors, and of his 
fellow-townsmen . 

A number of late and untrustworthy an- 
ecdotes have been collected which represent 
him as having been a butcher's boy of the- 
atrical tendencies ; as a deer stealer ; as begin- 
ning in London by holding horses in front of 
a theatre; as seducing an inn-keeper's wife 
at Oxford, and as dying in consequence of a 
drunken spree. 

18 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

It is regrettable that all of the traditions 
should be of this character, and that none 
should survive to relate some act or word of 
kindness, some elevated thought or poetical 
saying to preserve a worthy memory of the 
personality of the greatest genius. One tale 
there is of a favor done to Jonson, which we 
shall see later to be apochr\^hal. 

Shakespeareans attribute to him the qual- 
ities which they conceive must have formed 
the equipment of one whom they lovingly call 
"The Master." They assume that he was 
dignified and cultured; a lawyer, a traveler, 
a soldier and a courtier. 

On the other hand, Baconians are prone 
to conceive of him as an ignorant, drunken 
boor, and a mere vulgar impostor. 

Neither of these extreme positions is 
justified by the facts. Shakspere appears to 
have been a shrewd, virile Englishman, with 
a taste for wine and for women, and a fond- 
ness for low company which remained with 
him to the end of his life; and with a gift of 
low comedy which served him well in his 
19 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

profession, and was the well from which he 
drew such success and reputation as he en- 
joyed during his lifetime. 

From this point of view I purpose to 
relate the story of Shakspere's life, and to 
consider his share in the works called 
Shakespeare's. 

1564 William Shakspere, Shaxper or 
Shagsper; for he seems to have used 
these variants, was born in April, 1564, at 
Stratford on Avon, then a dirty, unlettered 
village of about fifteen hundred inhabitants. 
The exact site of his birthplace is not 
known. The house now shown to tourists as 
the birthplace was not owned by his father 
until 1575, and was first suggested as such 
in 1769. For some time there were three 
houses which claimed the distinction. The 
relics in the museum are scandalous impos- 
tures. Whatever Stratford may have been 
in Walpole's and in Garrick's day, it is now 
a clean and attractive little town, but terribly 
commercialised for the benefit of the senti- 
mental American tourist. 
20 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Shakspere's parents, John Shakspere 
and Mary Arden, were a tolerably well-to-do 
couple of farmer descent. Like his children, 
his parents were perfectly illiterate. 

Illiteracy was at the time no obstacle to 
public office, for in 1565 only six out of a 
total of nineteen selectmen of Stratford could 
sign their names. 

We need not be surprised, then, to learn 
that John Shakspere held several public of- 
fices. The high-water mark of his prosperity 
was in 1568, when he was elected High 
Bailiff, or Mayor, of Stratford. 

One of the functions of the Mayor was to 
issue licenses to the companies of players 
which toured the provinces in summer, when 
the London theatres were closed. It is known 
that Stratford was not without its share of 
entertainments of the kind. During the years 
between 1569 and 1587, twenty-four the- 
atrical companies visited it. It was the duty 
of the town officials to witness a performance 
before granting a license, and as his father's 
son, as well as on his own account, young 
21 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Shakspere, it is more than likely, attended 
many of the representations given during 
those years. 

1578 In 1578 John Shakspere, apparently 
in money difficulties, although only 
three years earlier he had bought the "birth- 
place" in Henley Street, mortgaged his wife's 
property of Asbies, which was in Wilmcote, 
or Wincot, for the sum of forty pounds, the 
equivalent then of about one thousand dol- 
lars. 

1582 About the end of November, 1582, 
Will Shakspere, then over eighteen 
years of age, married. It is commonly be- 
lieved that he married one Ann Hathaway, 
of Shottery, who was eight years his senior. 
Six months later his first child, Susanna, was 
born; and in February, 1585, the twins, 
Hamnet and Judith, were born. 

The picturesque Hathaway cottage, or 

what is shown as such, for its position was 

unknown in 1770, is one of the sights of 

Stratford ; and many pretty fancies have been 

22 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

woven around the love story of the poet and 
the maid. 

But the shadow of the critic hangs darkly 
over the romantic tale. There is no record 
of the marriage, and what we know of the 
affair furnishes good reason for doubts as to 
the identity of the bride. We may arrange 
the argument as follows: 

First. On November 27, 1582, a license 
was issued at Worcester for the marriage 
of William Shaxper with Anne Whately, 
of Temple Grafton. 

Second. On November 28, 1582, an indem- 
nity bond was given by two friends of the 
Hathaways, who made their marks instead 
of signing, to protect the Bishop from lia- 
bility for licensing the hurried marriage of 
one William Shagspere with Ann Hath- 
away. 

Have we to do with one couple here, or 
with two couples? If the latter, we have 
to face the improbability that two men of 
identical name were seeking marriage in 
the same diocese at the same moment. 
23 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Or were the Whately woman and the 
Hathaway woman one and the same? It 
has been suggested that Ann Hathaway 
had first married some man named Whate- 
ly, of Temple Grafton, had been left a 
widow, and that her friends who executed 
the bond overlooked this small circum- 
stance. 

This explanation assumes a great deal 
of carelessness in all the parties concerned; 
in the careless friends who forgot their 
protege's name; in the Bishop for suppos- 
ing that a bond for the case of one Ann 
Hathaway would indemnify him for li- 
censing the irregular marriage of Anne 
Whately ; and again in the Bishop to issue 
the license before the execution of the 
bond. 

These explanations, therefore, do not 
satisfy. 

Richard Hathaway, supposed to be the 

father of Ann, was a farmer of Shottery, 

who died a few months before this date, 

leaving three daughters, none of them 

24 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

named Ann, but of whom Agnes, sup- 
posed to be a name interchangeable with 
Ann, was the eldest. He left her in his 
Will, executed in September 1581, the sum 
of £6-13-4, to be paid her on the day of 
her marriage. So that she was not married 
at the time of the making of the Will. 

Third. If Shakspere married the Shottery 
woman, the existing records of Stratford 
church ought to testify to the fact. As to 
the Temple Grafton church, its records do 
not exist, thus leaving open the question 
as to the marriage having taken place 
there. And unfortunately, while the Strat- 
ford records preserve the dates of Will 
Shakspere's baptism, and of all the family 
baptisms; their marriages and burials; 
they make no mention of his own mar- 
riage; he was not married there, nor, we 
may conclude, to the Hathaway woman at 
any time or at any place. 

Fourth. After Shakspere's death, his wid- 
ow, whose share in his life appears to have 
been inconsiderable, remarried, taking one 
25 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Richard James as husband, and dying 
August 6, 1623. 

Now in 1616, the year of Shakspere's 
death, Ann Hathaway was sixty-one years 
old, and unless in extreme haste to divest 
herself of the illustrious name, must have 
been at least sixty-two years old at the time 
of her remarriage. Before the day of the 
modern woman, this was a good old age, 
and it will be conceded that this second or 
third marriage w^ould be more likely to oc- 
cur w^ith a younger woman, such as Anne 
Whately may have been. 
The Hatha ways abounded plenteously in 
Stratford. An Anne Hathaway of Shottery 
married William Wilson on January 17, 
1579, but this, of course, was not our Ann. 

Lady Barnard, Will Shakspere's grand 
daughter, dying in 1670, left money to the 
five daughters of her "kinsman" Thomas 
Hathaway, late of Stratford. But it seems 
that this Thomas Hathaway was a relative 
of her first husband, Thomas Nash, who died 
in 1647, leaving money to Elizabeth, Thomas 
26 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

and Judith Hathaway. Thomas Nash was 
himself a Stratfordian, born June 20, 1593. 
Thus there is no evidence of the Hath- 
away marriage, and there are even plausible 
grounds for the belief that, after all, Shaks- 
pere married Anne Whately de Temple 
Grafton. 

1587 In April, 1587, Edmund Lambert of 
Barton on Heath, John Shakspere's 
brother-in-law, and holder of the Asbies 
mortgage, died. In 1589 John Shakspere 
began suit against his nephew, John Lam- 
bert, alleging that in the autumn of 1587 it 
had been agreed between the Shaksperes, in- 
cluding William, and John Lambert, that 
the former were to deliver title to Asbies in 
consideration of twenty pounds to be paid by 
Lambert; that they were willing to perform 
their share of the agreement, but that Lam- 
bert would not pay the twenty pounds. Lam- 
bert denied that there had been any such 
agreement, and there the matter rested. 

Ten years later, John Shakspere brought 
another action against Lambert, on a new 
27 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

and different basis. This time he declared 
that he had tendered the amount of the mort- 
gage to Edmund Lambert in 1580, when it 
became due, and that Lambert had refused 
to accept it. 

This very improbable statement was also 
denied by Lambert, and as before, the pro- 
ceedings were dropped. It is therefore likely 
that both of Shakspere's contentions were 
untrue. 

Will Shakspere may have gone to London 
as early as 1585, or as late as 1587. If he 
was in Stratford in 1587 at the time of the 
alleged Asbies agreement, the latter supposi- 
tion is reasonable. Stratford was visited by 
several theatrical companies during the sum- 
mer of that year, Leicester's among the num- 
ber, and he may have returned to London 
with them in the autumn. It is as reasonable 
a theory as any, but we do not know. 

Nor do we know how the next few years 

were spent, and his biographers conjecture 

that he must have been doing this thing or 

that; traveling in Italy; or soldiering in 

28 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Flanders; or clerking in a lawyer's office; 
anything to fit him for play writing. One 
author is positive that he pursued the trade of 
stealing purses during those unrecorded 
years. This author, it is needless to say, is 
not a Stratfordian. 

It must be remembered that a number of 
the Shakespeare plays were written before the 
end of 1592. There is some difference of 
opinion as to the exact number, but the fol- 
lowing list is generally agreed upon: 

Titus Andronicus 1584-90 

Love's Labors Lost 1585-91 

Comedy of Errors 1587-91 

Taming of the Shrew 1589 

1 Henry VI 1589-91 

2 and 3 Henry VI 1591-2 
Two Gentlemen of Verona 1590-2 

To this list some add Pericles as of 1588, 
but it is more generally assigned to a later 
date. 

Here we have seven dramas done by the 
time our raw country boy had been in London 
some five years. Hamlet, in an early form, 
29 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

was kno-^-n in 1586. Prof. Dowden calls 
Titus Andronicus and 1 Henry VI pre- 
Shakespearean, and Dr. Fumivall assigns 
1590 as the date of Midsummer Night's 
Dream, and 1591 for Romeo and Juliet and 
for King John. 

Venus and Adonis must have been in 
process of labor in 1592, since it was pub- 
lished in 1593. 

Is it reasonable to credit Will Shakspere 
w4th the authorship of these plays? To do 
so is to stultify our judgment, and to no pur- 
pose, as it will be the object of this essay to 
maintain. 

The London stage at the time of which 
we are vmting was but an humble affair. The 
most popular feature of the shows was the 
buffoonery of the c1o\\tis, which was more or 
less extemporaneous. The audiences were 
made up of the most disreputable and unruly 
elements of a rude ci^^lization, with a 
sprinkling of fashionable young men in the 
boxes or on the stage. The actors were very 
plain people; grocers, butchers, carpenters, 
30 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

and the like. Legally they were vagabonds, 
and the puritanically minded Londoners ob- 
jected to their presence in their midst. The 
first public theatres, the "Theatre" and the 
"Curtain," which had been erected about 
1576 by James Burbage and by Philip 
Henslowe, respectively, were ultimately 
driven across the river to Southwark. Later 
each of these managers controlled several 
theatres. Henslowe, a very ignorant man, 
who had originally been his wife's servant, 
confined himself to the letting of his houses 
for a share in the receipts ; but the Burbages 
managed their playhouses and acted in them. 

The fondness of Queen Elizabeth and of 
her nobility for the drama promoted the de- 
velopment of the stage. Companies of play- 
ers were maintained under their protection. 
Thus there were the Queensmen; and com- 
panies were named after Lords Nottingham, 
Sussex, Essex, Worcester, Leicester, Stafford 
and others. The players gave performances 
at Court, or at the houses of their patrons, 
31 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

when called upon ; at other times they might 
give public performances. 

One of the companies thus maintained 
and protected was named for Lord Strange. 
When Leicester died in 1588 it received many 
of the players of his company. Lord Strange 
became the Earl of Derby in 1593, and died 
in 1594. Soon after, the company became 
the Lord Chamberlain's; and after the ac- 
cession of James I, the Kingsmen. 

This was the company to which Shaks- 
pere belonged. 

1592 The first allusion to Shakspere of 
which we have any knowledge after 
his departure from Stratford occurs in 1592. 
On March 3 of that year, Henry VI was pro- 
duced by Lord Strange's company at Hens- 
lowe's Rose theatre, and met with great suc- 
cess. It was said that 10,000 persons wit- 
nessed it during its run. It is assumed that 
it was the Shakespeare play, that Shakspere 
belonged to Lord Strange's company, and 
that he acted in this play; all of which is 
probably correct. 

32 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Then one Robert Greene, a clever but 
dissolute author, writing in June or July 
1592, made a violent attack upon Shakspere 
in a pamphlet which was published in Au- 
gust 1592, Greene having meanwhile died, 
by his literary executor, Henry Chettle. 

The pamphlet, entitled "A Groatsworth 
of Wit, &c," was addressed to three of 
Greene's acquaintances, playwrights, one of 
whom he styles a "gracer of tragedies," the 
second a "young Juvenal," and the third as 
being "in some things rarer, in nothing in- 
ferior, driven as myself to extreme shifts," 

He warns the three authors against play- 
actors; "those puppets that speak from our 
mouths, those antics garnished in our col- 
ors," who have forsaken him to whom they 
are so much beholden ; 

"Yes, trust them not, for there is 
an upstart crow beautified with our 
feathers, that with his tygers heart 
wrr'Dt in a players hide supposes he 
is as \:ell able to bumbast out a blank 
verse as the best of us, and being an 
33 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

absolute Johannes factotum, is in his 

own conceit the only Shake scene in 

the countrie." 

It is a pity, he says, that such rare wits 

should be subject to the pleasures of such 

rude groomes; others, he says, have written 

against these buckram gentlemen; let their 

own works bear witness against them, if they 

continue to maintain any more such peasants. 

Here he probably referred to Nash, who, in 

prefacing the Menaphon of Greene in 1589, 

wrote scornfully of the author of Hamlet. 

Thus Greene, who died in the direst pov- 
erty, charged actors in general with ingrati- 
tude: ''I, to whom they al have beene be- 
holding, is it not like that you * * * 
shall be bothe at once of them forsaken." 
And in particular, he charged the actor 
Shakspere with being an upstart with a 
tiger's heart, an expression travestied from 
Henry VI; and, while making his profit out 
of Greene's verses, with conceiting that he 
could make as good himself. 

It is a fact that the emoluments of the 
34 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

actors were much greater than those of the 
playwrights. The former received one-half 
of the receipts of the performances, but 
Henslowe's memoranda show that the high- 
est price he paid for a play was eleven 
pounds ; which sum was to be divided among 
the authors, five or six of whom were some- 
times employed in the composition of a play. 

A sequel to Greene's pamphlet was the 
publication, in December, 1592, of a pam- 
phlet by Chettle; the "Kind Hearts Dream," 
in which it was said that two of the three 
writers to whom the "Groatsworth" was ad- 
dressed had taken offense at it. One of the 
two, Chettle said, he did not know, nor care 
to ; but the other he held in esteem, both as a 
man and as an author, and he was as sorry 
to have given offense as if he had written the 
passage himself. 

This expression is usually explained to 
be an apology to Shakspere, which is a most 
inexcusable perversion of its meaning. The 
apology is plainly made to one of Greene's 
three friends, and the occasion for it was 
35 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

that the playwTights, who were sometimes 
"driven to extreme shifts," did not all care 
to endorse Greene's diatribes against the 
actors and managers upon whom they de- 
pended for their livelihood. 

It may fairly be inferred that Greene's 
shaft was in fact directed against Shakspere, 
and that it had to do with some trouble about 
Henry VI. The passage parodied by Greene 
occurs in 3 Henry VI. I. 4. Since this play 
is now attributed to the joint labors of Mar- 
lowe, Greene, Peele and Kyd, it is reasonable 
to conjecture that Greene, being one of the 
poorly paid playwrights, cherished in his dy- 
ing moments a grudge against Shakspere as 
an ungrateful upstart w^ho had dared to alter 
some of Greene's verses. 

We shall see that this first contemporary 
mention of Shakspere is in accord with other 
contemporary allusions. We learn from it 
that he had become an actor, and that he 
meddled with other men's plays to his own 
profit instead of theirs. 
26 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

It is also the first appearance, in the form 
of a punning variant of the name, of the new 
form Shake — , which, being adopted in the 
following year, by the author of Venus and 
Adonis, eventually replaced the original 
Shak — of the actor's name, and thereby led 
to much trouble and confusion. 

1593 In 1593 Venus and Adonis, the 
"first heir to my invention," was pub- 
lished, and was followed in 1594 by the 
"Rape of Lucrece." These poems, very suc- 
cessful at the time, but which do not afford 
much pleasure to modern readers, are dedi- 
cated by "William Shakespeare" to Henry 
Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. The 
classical and artificial style of the poems is 
not Shakespearean, and it requires a robust 
faith to believe the crude actor capable of 
their production. In fact, the name attached 
to the dedications is not his ; but only nearly 
his. 

The adulatory tone of the dedications is 
wholly Baconian, and Baconians find proof 
of Bacon's authorship in the dedication of 
37 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Lucrece, when taken in connection with the 
first and last lines of the poem. 

These may as well be given, in illustra- 
tion of Baconian methods; the dedication 
begins as follows: 

"The love I dedicate to your lord- 
ship is without end; whereof this 
pamphlet, without beginning, is but 
a superfluous moiety." 

The passage appears meaningless; the 
writer may have felt love for his lordship, as 
he says, and the pamphlet might have ex- 
pressed a moiety of that love, although it ex- 
pressed rather an insane passion; but why, 
even in that day of fantastic speech, should 
the author describe it as 'without beginning,' 
unless in order to make an antithesis, and 
run in the words, 'without end'? 

The expression is without meaning at 
all events, however it may be placed in re- 
spect to beginning or end. 

Therefore, the Baconians conclude that 
there is a hidden meaning, and look at the 
38 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

beginning and at the end of Lucrece, and 
this is what they find, as printed in the 
original editions : 

'* CROM the besieged Ardea all in post, 
Borne by the trustlesse wings of false 

desire." 
And the concluding lines are : 
"The Romaines plausibly did give constni 
To TARQUIN'S everlasting banishment." 
Finis. 

From the initial lines we derive 'Fr B,' 
and from the last lines, we have T bacon.' 

In September, 1594, a poem, entitled 
'Willobie and his Avisa,' was entered in the 
Stationer's Register. The authorship is at- 
tributed to Matthew Roydon, a minor poet 
and a friend of George Chapman. Shake- 
speare is mentioned by name in some intro- 
ductory verses : 

"Though Collatine have dearly bought 

To high renowne, a lasting life, 
And found that most in vaine hav^ 
sought 

39 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

To have a f aire and constant wife ; 
Yet Tarquine pluckt his glistering 

grape 
And Shake-speare paints p o o r e 
Lucrece rape." 

This is a type of many allusions to 
Shakespeare, which refer to the book and not 
to the actor, who never spelled his name as 
Shake-speare. 

The first official mention of Shakspere 
as an actor is in the list of some of the Lord 
Chamberlain's men, who gave two comedies 
at Greenw^ich Palace, at Christmas, 1594. 
The entry states that William Kempe, Will- 
iam Shakspere and Richard Burbage were 
paid twenty pounds for their performances 
at that time. 

Although the company of which Shak- 
spere was a member included Burbage, and 
usually played at Burbage's houses, it some- 
times had relations with the rival manager, 
Philip Henslowe. 

The following quaint entry in the so- 
40 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

called 'Diary' of Henslowe, records the 

earliest known instance of this : 

"In the name of God, amen, 1591, 
being the 19th feb, my Lord 
Strange's men as followeth." 

The names of two of Greene's plays fol- 
low: 'Friar Bacon' and 'Orlando' ; and on 
the 3d of March, Henry VI. Later in the 
year 'Lear' was played. 

From June 3, 1594, until November 15, 
1596, the Lord Chamberlain's men played 
at one of Henslowe's theatres, producing 
during the whole period an average of a new 
or different play every eighteen days. 

A number of the plays then given have 
identical or similar titles with Shakespeare 
plays. In addition to the two already men- 
tioned, we find Titus Andronicus, Hamlet, 
Taming of a Shrew; Palamon and Arcite, 
which is the same in plot with the Two Noble 
Kinsmen, which in turn, is included in one 
of the Shakespeare folios; and Henry V. 

Henslowe paid for several of these plays 
41 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

with the Shakespearean titles, and for plays 
on Shakespearean subjects: Troilus and 
Cressida; Sir John Ould casstel, which was 
attributed to Shakespeare in a quarto edition 
of 1600; The Life of Cardinal Wolsey, a 
predecessor of Henry VIII; Caesar's Fall 
and Richard Crookhacke, a play on the sub- 
ject of Richard III. 

Notwithstanding these various transac- 
tions, Henslowe, although he records pay- 
ments made for the writing of plays to Wil- 
son, Drayton, Dekker, Chettle, Monday, 
Hathway, Webster, Middleton and Ben Jon- 
son, records no payments made to Shak- 
spere, nor does he mention his name in any 
way whatever. 

1596 In this year Shakspere's son Ham- 
net died, and was buried on August 
11. 

1597 In 1597 Shakspere paid sixty pounds 
for New Place, in Stratford. 

1598 Corn being scarce in Stratford, an 
inventory of the supply on hand was 

42 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

taken, and William Shakspere of Stratford 
on Avon, gentleman, was listed as o^vning 
ten quarters. 

Jonson's 'Every Man in His Humor' was 
produced in 1598, with Shakspere in the 
cast. It was not a new play. 

On October 25, 1598, one Richard 
Quiney, a fellow-townsman, wrote to Shak- 
spere asking for a loan of thirty pounds. 
This is the only letter extant addressed to 
Shakspere, but three other letters of the same 
year survive in which he is mentioned. They 
all relate to the borrowing of money from 
him. 

1599 In 1599 Shakspere assumed a coat of 
arms, after attempting to have his 
right to do so recognised upon untruthful 
statements as to his ancestry. 

The design was a falcon holding a spear 
upright. The motto was 'Non Sanz Droict,' 
rather an audacious statement, under the cir- 
cumstances. 

Jonson immediately, 1599, inserted a 
43 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

satirical allusion to this affair in his 'Every 
Man out of his Humor.' He represented him 
as a clown who has purchased a coat of 
arms: 

"Carlo. A Swine without a head, 
without braine, wit, any- 
thing indeed, Ramping to 
Gentilitie. You can blazon 
the rest signior, can you 
not? 
Puntarvolo. Let the word be, 'Not 
without mustard &c' 
The wit may not be Attic, but its meaning 
is sufficiently plain; the magnificent Shake- 
speare, the friend of Earls and the lover of 
Court ladies, is publicly ridiculed as a cIowti, 
by his personal acquaintance. 

In this same year 1599, the Burbages 
built the Globe theatre, and, according to a 
declaration made by them in 1635, "to our- 
selves we joined those deserving men, Shak- 
spere, Hemings, Condall, Phillips and 
others, partners in the profits of the house," 
these profits being, as is elsewhere stated, 
44 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

one half of the receipts, and the outer doors". 

The statement continues, referring to the 
Blackfriars theatre, that when they took over 
the lease, which was in Aug. 1608, they 
placed in it "men players, which were Hem- 
ings, Condall, Shakspere &c." So that long 
after Shakspere's death, and long after the 
publication of the 1623 folio, ^-ith its flam- 
boyant eulogies. Will Shakspere remained 
merely a "deserving man" to the Burbages. 

The ownership of the Globe theatre was 
in sixteen shares, of which the Burbages held 
eight, Condall four, and Hemings four 
shares. The shareholders were known as the 
'housekeepers,' and they had one half of the 
receipts, except the 'outer doors,' and they 
paid the rent and certain other expenses. 
1600 In the course of the year 1600 Shak- 
spere sued one John Cla}1:on, of Lon- 
don, for seven pounds, and got judgment in 
his favor. He also sued Philip Rogers, of 
Stratford, for two shillings. No sum was too 
insignificant to be neglected by this careful 
man of business. 

45 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

1601 On February 2 1601 Southampton 
ordered and paid for a performance 
of Richard II at the Globe theatre. The 
Queen was greatly offended with the per- 
formance, which she regarded as treason- 
able. The Essex rebellion broke out on Feb- 
ruary 8, the play, relating the deposition of 
the King, being supposedly one of the means 
adopted to excite and prepare the minds of 
the populace for the event. 

Nevertheless Shakspere played with the 
company before the Queen at Richmond on 
February 24, the night before Essex's exe- 
cution. It is evident that if Shakspere had 
been regarded as the author of the seditious 
play, Richard II, he would have been the 
angry Queen's prisoner, instead of being 
called upon to amuse her by his gambols at 
this moment. 

Again, on March 13 1601, John Man- 
ningham, a barrister of the Middle Temple, 
recorded in his diary a story of Shakspere the 
actor, which was going the rounds at the 
time. It was to the effect that Shakspere, 
46 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

overhearing an arrangement for a meeting 
between Richard Burbage, then playing 
Richard III, and his mistress, forestalled 
his friend with the woman. When Burbage 
arrived and sent in his name, Shakspere 
caused answer to be made that "William 
the Conqueror came before Richard III." 
Manningham concluded the entry with the 
remark; "Shakspere's name William." 

By 1601 at least twenty of the plays now 
known as Shakespeare's had been produced. 
How then are we to account for the fact that 
an educated man thought it necessary to ex- 
plain a joke by noting that 'Shakspere's name 
was William?' Clearly he did not associate 
the writer and the actor in his mind. 

On September 8, 1601, Shakspere's 
father was buried. 

The pursuit of gentility by Will Shak- 
spere has already been noted. About this 
time his fellow actors, Phillips, Pope and 
Cowley, with a number of others, over 
twenty in all, were charged with having ob- 
tained grants of arms under false pretenses. 
47 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

The practise was becoming a scandal 
against which the satirists launched their 
bolts of ridicule. 

In the "Return from Parnassus," a stu- 
dent sketch, acted in Cambridge in 1601-2, 
but not printed until 1606, one Studioso is 
made to say: 

"But ist not strange this mimick apes 
should prize 
Unhappy schollers at a hireling rate, 
Vile world ; that lifts them up to hye 

degree 
And treads us down in groveling 
miserie. 



With mouthing words that better wits 

have framed 
They purchase lands, and now 
Esquiers are made. 
Of similar tenor are certain passages in 
"Ratsei's Ghost," which was published in 
1605; 

Ratsei, a robber, advises a strolling actor 
to go to London, and learn to feed upon all 
48 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

men, to make his hand a stranger to his 
pocket, his heart slow to perform his 
tongue's promise, and when his purse is well 
lined, to buy a place of Lordship in the coun- 
try, that growing weary of playing, his money 
may bring him to dignity and reputation. 
Then he need care for no one, nor for them 
that before made him proud with speaking 
their words upon the stage. "I have heard," 
he concludes, "of some that have gone to 
London very meanly, and have come in time 
to be extremely wealthy." 

In the two above quoted passages, ref- 
erence is assumed by the biographers to be 
made to Shakspere, and it may well be so, for 
they accord with other contemporary al- 
lusions. And if so, it will be noticed that 
Shakspere is credited only with speaking 
other men's words. 

Another passage in the Return from Par- 
nassus contains a reference to Shakspere by 
name ; Burbage and Kempe, two members of 
the Globe company, are speaking, and the 
clown Kemp says; 

49 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

"Few of the University pens play 
well. They smell too much of that 
writer Ovid, and that writer Meta- 
morphosis, and talk too much of 
Proserpina and Juppiter. Why, here's 
our fellow Shakespeare puts them all 
down, I, and Ben Jonson, too. Oh 
that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow; 
he brought up Horace giving the 
poets a pill, but our fellow Shake- 
speare hath given him a purge that 
made him bewray his credit." 

Here reference is made to a literary row 
which was amusing London in 1601, in 
which Jonson had come off second best. He 
had attacked Marston and Dekker in the 
'Poetaster,' and Dekker had made vigorous 
response in "Satiromastix." 

Shakspere was not concerned in the af- 
fair, and never gave Jonson a purge to be- 
wray his credit. But the College wits who 
were the authors of the Return from Par- 
nassus, saw their opportunity to poke fun at 
Kempe, who was the buffoon of Burbage's 
50 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Company, by representing him as supposing 
that Metamorphosis was the name of an 
author, a,nd to raise a laugh at his simple 
boasting that his 'fellow Shakspere' had put 
Jonson down. The one absurdity would be 
as evident as the other to the educated 
audience who would witness a College play. 
"Silly old stuff" Andrew Lang calls it, 
truly enough. But that we have to bother 
with it is the fault of the biographers, who 
endeavor to turn every bit of nonsense to 
Shakspere's credit. 

1602 On May 1 1602, Shakspere bought 
107 acres from William Combe, to 
enlarge New Place at Stratford. The price 
was 320 pounds. 

In this same year 1602, the Town Coun- 
cil of Stratford, unmoved by the great repu- 
tation, which Shakespearians assume was 
his, of Will Shakspere, prohibited the use 
of the Guild Hall for dramatic purposes. It 
was the only suitable place for stage per- 
formances in Stratford. In 1612 the pro- 
hibition was renewed. 
51 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

In 1602 William Kemp left the Lord 
Chamberlain's company to join that of Ed- 
ward Alleyn, Henslowe's son in law. 

Kemp was a well known person on the 
stage, his specialties being clo\\'ning and jig 
dancing. He had traveled with a company 
which played in Denmark, in France, and in 
Italy. 

His best kno\Mi feat was a morris dance 
over the distance of 114 miles between Lon- 
don and Norwich. He performed this feat 
in 1600, in nine days of dancing, accom- 
panied by one Thomas Slye, who played the 
tabor to his partner's steps. 

Kemp recorded the event in a pamphlet 
called "A Nine Daies Wonder," of which 
only a single copy is known to exist. It was 
dedicated to Mistres Anne Fitton, supposed 
to be intended for Mistress Mary Fitton, one 
of the maids of honor to the Virgin Queen. 

From this ignorant familiarity, some 
writers argue that actors, clowns and the like, 
may have been on intimate terms with per- 
sonages of the Court, and Shakspere among 
52 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

the number. But the error in the dedication 
does not allow us to infer any intimacy with 
the lady addressed; and it is to be remem- 
bered that the days when jesters and buf- 
foons had the privilege of amusing their 
masters, had not yet passed. 

1603 Queen Elizabeth died on March 4 of 
this year. It was a year of the plague. 

On May 7 James I issued a patent, licensing 
the King's players. In the list of eleven 
players, Shakspere's name occurs second. 

In a letter dated October 20 1603, Mrs. 
Alleyn recorded a visit she had received from 
Mr. Shakspere of the Globe, in reference to 
an attempt of one Francis Challoner to bor- 
row money from her. Shakspere told her that 
Challoner was a rogue, and she wrote that 
she was glad that she had not lent him an}'- 
thing. It is strange that every reference to 
Shakspere should be coupled with some 
mention of money, and none with mention 
of his wonderful dramas. 

1604 In May 1604 Shakspere sued Philip 
Rogers for the sum of 1 pd, 15 sh, 

53 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

10 d, the value of some malt he had sold to 
Rogers. Once before he sued him for two 
shillings. Unfortunate Rogers. 

On March 15, 1604, Shakspere walked in 
procession, with eight other actors, on the 
occasion of James's entry into London. Four 
and a half yards of red cloth apiece was the 
reward for this service. 

Certain answers made to interrogatories 
in a petty suit of 1612, reveal the fact that 
about this time, 1604, Shakspere occasion- 
ally "lay" in the house of a wigmaker named 
Mountjoy, in Silver Street, a little to the 
north of Cheapside. It is fairly well estab- 
lished that prior to 1594, Shakspere lived 
in St. Helen's parish, Bishopsgate, and that 
by 1596 he had removed to Southwark. 

1605 In 1605, the year of the Gunpowder 
Plot, Shakspere paid 440 pounds for 
an unexpired lease of tithes in Stratford. 
This purchase conferred the right of sepul- 
ture within the chancel of the church, and to 
it we probably owe the preservation of the 
Shakespeare monument. 
54 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

On May 4 1605 Augustine Phillips, one 
of the company, died, and left "to my fel- 
low William Shakspeare, a thirty shilling 
piece of gold." 

1607 In this year Will Shakspere's daugh- 
ter Susanna married Dr. John Hall 

of Stratford. This was June 5, when he was 
32 years old, and she 25. He held several 
offices ; was twice a burgess ; a church warden 
and a vicar's warden. In Oct. 1633 he was 
expelled from the town council for "breach 
of orders, sundry other misdemeanors and 
for his continual disturbances at our 
Halles." He died in 1635 and a flat stone 
in the chancel of Stratford church bears his 
name. Beside him is his wife's stone, and 
on the other side of Shakspere's grave is 
that of Ann Shakspere, who married Rich- 
ard James. 

1608 In 1608 Shakspere prosecuted John 
Addenbroke for a debt of six pounds, 

and, Addenbroke having judiciously ab- 
sconded, Shakspere, to the great sorrow of 
his biographers, was so unmerciful as to put 
55 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Addenbroke's security, Thomas Hornby, in 
iail. On September 9 1608 Shakspere's 
mother, ISIary Arden, was buried. 

On October 16 1608 he stood godfather 
at Stratford, to Henry Walker's son. 

1609 In Aug. 1608, as already noted, the 
Burbages put him, wdth his other 

"men players," at the Blackfriars theatre. 
Great dramatist and intimate of Earls, as 
the biographers would have us believe him, 
he was still subject to the orders of the sons 
of the carpenter actor, Burbage, and of Hem- 
ings and Condell. 

1610 The Sonnets were published in 1609, 
and in 1610 Macbeth appeared in 

print. It was the last of the plays known as 
Shake-speare's to be published during the 
lifetime of the actor. 

Still we find no mention of him in the 
social annals of the day. One mention of 
him we do find at this time; in the Scourge 
of Folly, published in 1610 by John Davies 
of Hereford. Davies was himself an actor. 
The reference is as follows; 
56 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

To our English Terence — Mr. Will 
Shake-speare. 

Some say, good Will, which I, in sport do 
sing, 
Hadst thou not plaid some Kingly parts in 
sport, 
Thou hadst bin a companion for a King, 

And been a King among the meaner sort. 
Some others raile ; but raile as they think fit. 
Thou hast no rayling, but a reigning wit, 
And honesty thou sowest, which they do reap. 
So to increase their stocke which they do 
keepe. 
Da vies calls Will a comic writer, or Ter- 
ence, at whom some railed; and for the 
rest, a good boon companion among the 
meaner sort^ with a lively wit; and as an 
actor in Kingly parts. 

In 1610 Shakspere bought 20 acres of 
land in Stratford from the Combes. 

1612 In this year an incident occurred 
which has been curiously misinter- 
preted by the biographers. It followed upon 
the publication of the Passionate Pilgrim. 
57 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

In 1598 Wm. Jaggard published two 
sonnets by Richard Barnfield. In 1599 he 
issued the "Passionate Pilgrim, by Wm. 
Shakespeare;" a volume containing about 
twenty sonnets. Only five of the verses, 
namely, Sonnets 138 and 144, with three 
songs from Loves Labors Lost, are Shake- 
speare's; the rest of the verses are by Mar- 
lowe, Barnfield, Griffin, Roydon and others. 

No complaint of this publication is re- 
corded; but when Jaggard issued a third 
edition in 1612, this time adding two poems 
by Thomas Hey wood, still retaining Shake- 
peare's name on the title page, Heywood 
promptly protested. He wrote; 

"Here likewise I must necessarily 
insert a manifest injury done to me 
in that worke, by taking the two epis- 
tles of Paris to Helen and Helen to 
Paris, and printing them in a lesser 
volume under the name of another, 
w^hich may put the world in opinion 
I might steale them from him, and 
he, to do himself right, hath since 
58 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

published them in his owTie name, but 
as I must acknowledge my lines not 
worthy his patronage under whom he 
hath published them, so the author I 
know much offended with M. Jag- 
gard that (altogether unknown to 
him) presumed to make so bold with 
his name." 
The above protest was published by Hey- 
wood in "An Apology for Actors," and is 
interpreted by Shakespearians to mean that 
Shakspere w^as offended at the liberty taken 
with his name by Jaggard, and as a proof 
that Heywood was acquainted wath Shake- 
speare. 

If Will Shakspere was offended by this 
particular unauthorized use of his name, and 
said so; this is the one and only occasion 
upon which he ever lifted up his voice 
against literary piracy. Indeed he should 
have been the last man to protest, he w^ho 
is charged by his contemporaries with the 
appropriation of other men's works. 

In addition to specific accusations 
59 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

brought against him by Greene and Jonson, 
Chapman is supposed to refer to him in the 
preface to the Hiad published in 1611, when 
he writes of some one whom he calls a 
"windsucker" and a "kestrel," names for a 
species of small hawk; of whom he says that 
"whatsoever he takes from others he adds 
to himself; one that in this kind of robbing 
doth like Mercury, but stole good and sup- 
plied it with counterfeit bad." 

But, as a matter of fact, Heywood, in 
making the protest, was speaking for him- 
self alone. Translated into modern English, 
his complaint would read somewhat as fol- 
lows; 

I protest against the injury done to ME 
by the printing of my two poems under 
Shakespeare's name, since it looks as if I 
had stolen them from him, and he had been 
obliged to set himself right by now publish- 
ing them himself. I know that my verses are 
unworthy of the honor of being attributed to 
the writer of Venus, Lucrece and the Son- 
nets, but still, as the author of them, I am 
60 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

much offended with the liberty which has 
been taken with my name. 

Apart from the fact that the above is the 
plain meaning of the passage, it is what we 
should expect. Heywood was the injured 
party; the credit had been taken from him 
and given to another, while Shakspere was 
not cast in the mould which constrains a 
man to disclaim unearned credit. Between 
1595 and 1613, at least nine plays were pub- 
lished with either "W. S." or "William 
Shakespeare" on the title page, without pro- 
test from the actor, or indeed from any one 
else, although no one of the nine is now 
attributed to Shakespeare. 

Shakspere never laid claim to any lit- 
erary production. Since the publication of 
the poems, the name "Shake-speare" evident- 
ly had a commercial value, and the fact that 
the litigious, grasping man who was always 
suing someone for small sums of money, 
took no thought for the protection of what 
ought to have been a valuable asset, makes 
61 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

it quite evident that the plays were not his 
property. 

1613 On March 10 1613 Shakspere bought 
a house in Blackfriars, 200 yards east 
of the theatre, for 141 pounds, and on the 
day following, placed a mortgage on it. He 
bought from Henry Walker, whose son was 
his god son. 

During the same month he was paid 44 
shillings for painting a device, or for doing 
some work in connection with it, at Belvoir 
Castle for the Duke of Rutland. His fellow 
player Burbage was paid a like amount. 

Jonson and Drayton are known to have 
been guests at Belvoir, but Shakspere seems 
to have been there as a workman only. 

Beaumont, Fletcher and Jonson are men- 
tioned as having been at the Mermaid, the 
club which was founded by Sir Walter 
Raleigh, but there is no mention of Shak- 
spere there. 

On June 29 1613, during a performance 
of Henry VIII, the Globe theatre caught fire 
62 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

and was burned down, but the plays and cos- 
tumes in stock there were saved. 

By this time Shakspere appears to have 
retired from the stage, and we may consider 
what is known as to his place as an actor. 
There is a silly tradition that his best part 
was that of the Ghost in Hamlet, which we 
may at once discard, knowing otherwise. 

Davies has told us that Shakspere played 
in Kingly parts, and we may infer from 
the position of his name near the head of the 
list of players, both in the King's patent, and 
in Burbage's declaration of 1635, that Shak- 
spere was a prominent member of the com- 
pany. As early as 1594 he was one of the 
three actors who were paid twenty pounds 
for playing in two comedies at Greenwich 
before the Court. 

Yet little is known as to the actual parts 
in which he played. We know of only two 
parts in which we may be certain that he ap- 
peared. 

The first is the part of "Kno'well," the 
63 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

leading character in Jonson's "Every Man in 
his Humor," which he played in 1598. 

The second is the part of Caesar. Jonson 
said of him, in his Discoveries, published in 
1641, "Many times he fell into those things 
could not escape laughter, as when he said, 
in the person of Caesar, one speaking to him ; 
'Caesar, thou dost me wrong.' he replyd, 
'Caesar never did wrong but with just cause,' 
and such like, which were ridiculous." 

This refers to the scene in Julius Caesar, 
Act III, 1. Caesar says; 

"Know Caesar doth not wrong — 
nor without cause will be satisfied." 

During all these years the company was 
in constant service; in the winter playing in 
London, unless prevented by outbreaks of 
the plague; in the summer touring the 
provinces. These tours took the company, 
and Will Shakspere with it, far and wide; 
we read of it in the Channel towns ; at Aber- 
deen in the north, and at Bideford in the 
west; and in many other places between 
these extreme points. 

64 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

1614 By 1614 Shakspere was permanently 
established at Stratford, where the 
Combes, with whom he had several business 
transactions, appear to have been his chosen 
companions. John Combe, tax gatherer and 
money lender, died during the year, be- 
queathing him the sum of five pounds. 

We find mention of a Stephen Sly, as a 
servant of William Combe, and in 1616, of 
a Christopher Sly of Stratford. 

In December 1614 Shakspere went to 
London upon business, in reference to an at- 
tempt of William Combe to annex a piece of 
common land in Stratford. Shakspere, who 
had an interest in the matter, owing to his 
lease of tithes, having first secured himself 
against loss, took sides with Combe against 
the corporation, but the scheme failed. 
1616 On February 10 1616, Shakspere's 
daughter Judith married Thomas 
Quiney, a tavern keeper. It is not on record 
that any of Shakspere's friends of high de- 
gree from London w^ere present on the occa- 
sion. Quiney did not turn out well. He was 
65 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

addicted to adulterating his liquors and was 
eventually forced to leave the town. 

On April 17, William Hart, Shakspere's 
brother in law, was buried, and on the 23d 
of the same month, William Shakspere died 
after an illness of a month. 

Shakspere's Will was drawn up in Janu- 
ary 1616, and corrected in March, when he 
was taken ill. He left his daughter Judith 
300 pounds; his sister Joan 20 pounds and 
the house she lived in ; to her three sons five 
pounds each; to his grand daughter Eliza- 
beth Hall, whom he calls his "neece," his 
plate; and the following small bequests: to 
the poor of Stratford 10 pds, to Thomas 
Combe his sword, to Thomas Russel 5 pds, to 
Francis Collins of Warwick, the lawyer who 
attended to his affairs, 13 pds 6 sh 8 d, to 
his godson 20 shillings in gold, to Hamlett 
Sadler, William Raynoldes, Anthony Nash 
and to John Nash, 26 sh 8 d each; to "my 
fellows" John Hemynges, Richard Burbage 
and Henry Cundell, 26 sh 8 d each for rings. 

To his wife, interlined as an after 
66 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

thought, which no one omits to notice, he 
willed his second best bed with the furniture. 
This throws light on his relations with his 
wife. Possibly he foresaw her intention to 
become Mrs. Richard James. 

All the rest of his property went to his 
daughter Susanna and her husband; to wit; 
his goodes, chattels, leases, plate, jewels, and 
household stuffe whatsoever. 

In this Will therefore, there is no men- 
tion of books, manuscripts or copyhold 
rights in his works; nor, although he goes 
outside of his family in making bequests, 
does he mention any one beyond the circle 
of humble people with whom he associated 
in Stratford and in the theatre. 

Perhaps this is the place to refer to a 
curious error regarding Burbage and Hem- 
ing into which Charles Kingsley, and fol- 
lowing his lead, Henry Pemberton Jr., have 
fallen. 

In Jonson's Masque of Christmas, a 
small boy is billed to enact the part of Cupid. 
Before his appearance, his mother, a dodder- 
67 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

ing old woman, engages an usher in conver- 
sation. She praises her boy; "she could have 
had money enough for him had she been 
tempted to have let him out for the week to 
the Kings Players . . Master Burbage 
has been about with her for him, and old Mr. 
Hemmings too." 

Whereupon Kingsley goes off in one of 
his characteristic tirades to the effect that she 
had better have tied a stone about his neck 
and throwTi him into the river than have 
handed him over to Burbage to make money 
out of the degradation of Christ's lamb &c, 
intimating that Burbage wanted the boy for 
immoral purposes. 

Now at that date, women's parts were 
played by boys, and handsome boys w^ere 
much sought after, and were more highly 
paid than the other actors. Of course the old 
w^oman was only trying to blow her son's 
trumpet as a desirable addition to the cast in 
the Masque, and the point comes out when, 
after a few words, the poor little fellow 
breaks down and is sent off the stage. 
68 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Three weeks before Shakspere's death, 
Francis Beaumont, dramatist, was buried in 
Westminster Abbey. Two years later, when 
Richard Burbage, Shakspere's fellow, died, 
many tributes were paid to him as a man 
and as an actor. 

But Will Shakspere's death attracted no 
attention whatever. 

His son in law. Dr. John Hall, made the 
following entry in his note book of cases; 

"My father in law died last Thurs- 
day." 
That is all — a brief notice, but sufficient 
in his eyes. 

And yet Shakespearians of today lay 
their hands upon their hearts, and say: 

"There is no mystery about Shake- 
speare; records amply establish the 
identity between the actor and the 
writer." 
It was really Ben Jonson who wTote Will 
Shakspere's epitaph in the "Poet Ape," or 
Poet Actor, Ape being Elizabethan for actor, 
which apj)eared in 1616. It is as follows; 
69 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

"Poor Poet Ape that would be thought 
our chief, 
Whose works are but the frippery 
of wit, 
From brokage is become so bold a 
thief 
As we, the robbed, leave rage and 
pity it. 
At first he made low shifts; would 
pick and glean, 
Buy the reversion of old plays; 
now grown 
To a little wealth and credit in the 
scene 
He takes up all ; makes each man's 
wit his own, 
And told of this, he slights it. Tut, 
such crumes 
The sluggish gaping auditor de- 
vours. 
He marks not whose twas first, and 
after times 
May judge it to be his as well as 
ours. 
Fool, as if half eyes will not know a 
fleece 
From locks of wool; or shreds 
from the whole piece." 
70 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Will Shakspere was undoubtedly referred 
to in these lines, which give truly enough, 
the measure of his performance, and whose 
prophecy has been amply fulfilled. 

The monument in the church in Strat- 
ford was erected by the family, probably 
very much as we see it today. The restora- 
tions made in 1746 were very trifling, and 
Dugdale's illustrations in his "Antiquities of 
Warwickshire," of which Baconians make 
much, have been shown by Mr. Lang to be 
inaccurate. Dugdale, by the way, gives us no 
information about the player. 

Will Shakspere was a successful man in 
his way, which was not an extraordinary 
way. He went to London at a happy moment 
in the calling he had chosen. He was able to 
add to the already considerable emoluments 
of an actor by some sort of popularizing 
work on old plays which aroused anger and 
jealousy in some professional playwrights. 

So far from being an ignorant, drunken 
boor was he, that by industry and shrewd- 
ness he made himself a place upon the stage, 
71 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

and a fortune; he looked after his family 
and restored them to comfort. 

But was he the inspired writer the world 
at large believes him to have been? Do we 
find it true that his life was one of "constant 
and extraordinary intellectual growth" as 
the authors of "The Facts about Shake- 
speare" phrase it? I cannot bring myself to 
believe it. To the very end he remained the 
shrewd, money getting, money lending, 
litigious man of small affairs. He left no 
books nor papers, nor anything suggestive 
of a literary life. He is assumed to have been 
a man of wide culture; his plays are gen- 
erally taken from foreign, and sometimes 
from somewhat inaccessible sources, and yet 
his equipment was of the most poverty 
stricken character in all the essentials of a 
literary life. Every carpenter needs his tools, 
and Will Shakspere had none. 

Baconians hold that Shakspere deserted 

his family, and neglected to provide for them 

even after he became able to do so. They 

support this theory by the case of one 

72 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Thomas Whittington, who as they say, dying 
in 1601, instructed his executor to recover a 
debt of 40 shillings from Mrs. Shakspere. 

What Whittington actually did was to 
bequeath to the poor of Stratford, 40 shil- 
lings "which is in the hand of Anne Shax- 
pere wyfe unto Mr. Wyllyam Shaxspere and 
is debt due me, being paid to mine executor 
by the said Wyllyam Shaxspere or his as- 
signs &c." 

The inference from this is that Mrs. 
Shakspere was holding Whittington's savings 
for him, in default of savings banks. 

In this year of 1601 Shakspere was in 
prosperous circumstances. Four years earlier 
he had bought New Place, a pretentious 
property, and had probably installed his 
family there. Although the greatest literary 
Englishman — if we choose to think him such 
— did so far neglect his children that they 
never learned to read or write, we have no 
reason to believe that he neglected their ma- 
terial wants. 

There is no evidence that Will Shak- 
72> 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

spere ever knew socially any one outside of 
the narrow circle of his fellow play actors 
and fellow^ townsmen. He was not even dis- 
tinguished in his own town; he never held 
any public office there, and was neither 
missed nor regretted. When, later in the cen- 
tury, visitors came to Stratford; as the vicar 
John Ward in 1661, John Aubray in 1669, 
and John Dowdall in 1693, nothing was re- 
membered of Will Shakspere but a few un- 
important trifles — he had wit but not art; 
that he died after a carouse; that he was 
a butcher's boy, and that he wrote a lot of 
doggerel verses, including his own epitaph. 

There is no mention made of him in any 
papers left by any of the distinguished per- 
sonages who were, it is asserted, his friends 
and intimates. 

And, finally, outside of the first folio of 
1623, there was never any contemporary 
claim made that he, Will Shakspere, the 
actor, was the author of the works since 
known as ''Shake-speare's." 



74 



CHAPTER III 

VENUS, LUCRECE, AND THE 
SONNETS 

A careful perusal of the foregoing chap- 
ter should satisfy the reader of weakness in 
Will Shakspere's title. Not only does the 
evidence fail to identify him with the man 
of culture and genius we are entitled to find 
as the author of the Shakespeare works, but 
it points plainly in an opposite direction, in- 
dicating that he held, and deserved, only a 
lowly place among his contemporaries. 

Leaving this then, let us inquire as to 
the evidence that the poems and plays were 
composed by him. And first as to the poems. 

Venus and Adonis. This, the first to ap- 
pear of the poems, and 
the first appearance in print of the name 
William Shakespeare, was published in 
1593. It was prefaced by two lines in the 
original Latin from the Amores of Ovid, and 
by a Dedication to the Earl of Southampton. 
75 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

The poem relates that on a summer's 
morn, Adonis was on his way to the hunt, 
when Venus waylaid him, and despite his 
indifference, held him during the day, while 
she made shameless love to him. At night- 
fall, he left her, very probably being in need 
of refreshment, and when on the following 
morning, she found him, he had met his 
death in the hunt. A flower sprang up from 
his blood, which she, lamenting, took with 
her to Paphos. 

The tale is, of course, taken from the 
Metamorphoses, but is told at much greater 
length, and with the erotic side of the story 
developed ad nauseam. Where Ovid merely 
says; 

"And she flung 
Her limbs upon the grass, and 

pressed at once 
Its verdure and her lover, and her 

wealth 
Of glossy tresses pillowing on his 

breast 
With frequent kisses broken told her 
tale." Kings transl. 

76 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

the English writer devotes quite one fourth 
part of the poem to the presentation, in tedi- 
ous iteration, of this phase of his theme. 
Now, this amorousness is not a feature of the 
Shakespeare plays. The authorship is 
fundamentally different. 

The description of the horse appears to 
have been adapted from the poem on the 
Creation, by the Frenchman Du Bartas. Du 
Bartas described the horse which was tamed 
by Cain as follows; 

"With round high hollow smooth 

brown jetty hoof. 
With pasterns short upright, but yet 

in mean. 
Dry sinewy shanks, strong fleshless 

knees and lean. 
With hart like legs, broad breast and 

large behinde, 
With body large, smooth flanks and 

double chined. 
A crested neck, bowed like a half bent 

bow 
Whereon a long thin curled mane 

doth flow, 

77 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

A fine full tail, touching the lowly 
ground 

With dock between two fair fat but- 
tocks drowned, 

Pricked ear that rests as little space 

As his light foot; a lean bare bonny 
face, 

Thin jowle and head, but of a mid- 
dling size 

Full lively flaming, quickly rolling 
eyes. 

Great foaming mouth, hot flaring 
nostril wide." 

This, our English author, in haste to re- 
turn to his puling Venus, condenses into four 
lines ; 

"Round hoof'd, short jointed, fetlocks 
shag and long 
Broad breast, full eye, small head 
and nostril wide. 
High crest, short ears, straight legs 
and passing strong 
Thin mane, thick tail, broad but- 
tock, tender hide;" 
78 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Ovid's Metamorphoses was translated by 
Golding into English and published in 1565. 
Du Bartas, who lived from 1544 to 1590, 
was translated into English by Sylvester in 
1598. 

Mr. Castle finds traces of a legal train- 
ing in the author in lines 335-6; 

"But when the heart's attorney once 
is mute 
The client breaks, as desperate in his 
suit." 

and in lines 511-21 ; 

"Pure lips, sweet seals in my soft lips 
imprinted, 
What bargains may I make, still 
to be sealing? 
To sell myself I can be well con- 
tented, 
So thou wilt buy, and pay, and 
use good dealing; 
Which purchase if thou make, for 

fear of slips, 
Set thy seal manual on my wax red 
lips. 

79 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

A thousand kisses buys my heart 

from me; 
And pay them at thy leisure, one 

by one. 
What is ten hundred touches unto 

thee? 
Are they not quickly told, and 

quickly gone? 
Say, that for non payment that the 

debt should double, 
Is twenty hundred kisses such a 

trouble?" 

With less plausibility. Dr. Furnivall saw 
references to Startford experiences in such 
lines as; 

"Rain added to a river that is rank 
Perforce will force it to overflow the 
bank." 

which he thought might picture the Avon; 
and in; 

"Even as the wind is hushed before it 

raineth" and in; 
"The owl, nights herald, shrieks — 'tis 

very late" and; 
"Like many clouds consulting for foul 

weather" 

80 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

and in other similar instances. As if such 
experiences were to be found only at Strat- 
ford. 

Now, as to the authorship ; the poems and 
Sonnets are taken by Shakespearians to fur- 
nish contemporary proof that the actor Will 
Shakspere enjoyed the friendship of distin- 
guished personages at Court, where he ac- 
quired the culture and knowledge of the 
great world which are displayed in the works. 
The argument is that the poems show culture, 
therefore the actor had culture. The connec- 
tion is not quite clear, but it is the best to 
be had, since there is no other proof of the 
existence of either culture or of courtly 
friendships of Will Shakspere. 

As to the plays, the lines of Jonson in the 
first folio constitute the only direct, contem- 
porary testimony in our possession to the ef- 
fect that the actor. Will Shakspere, was the 
admired author of the Shakespeare plays. 

Steevens excluded the poems from his 
edition of Shakespeare's works in 1773, de- 
81 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

daring that an Act of Parliament would not 
compel readers into their service. 

The dedication of Venus and Adonis 
runs as follows ; 

To the 

Right Honourable Henry Wriothesley 

Earl of Southampton 

and Baron of Titchfield. 

Right Honourable 

I know not how I shall offend in dedi- 
cating my unpolished lines to your lordship, 
nor how the world will censure me for choos- 
ing so strong a prop to support so weak a 
burden; only if your honour seems but 
pleased, I account myself highly praised, and 
vow to take advantage of all idle hours till 
I have honoured you with some greater 
labour. But if the first heir of my invention 
prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so 
noble a godfather, and never after ear so 
barren a land, for fear it yield me still so bad 
a harvest. I leave it to your honourable sur- 
vey, and your honour to your heart's con- 
tent; which I wish may always answer your 
82 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

own wish and the world's hopeful expecta- 
tion. 

Your Honours in all duty, 

William Shakespeare. 

The author says that if this, his first at- 
tempt, be successful, he will offer something 
more serious. Seven editions of Venus, and 
five of Lucrece, were issued by 1616, thus 
justifying the author's hopes. 

It is to be remembered that the poems 
and Sonnets were not included in the first 
folio, so that the support of Jonson's iden- 
tification does not extend to them. 

The name "Shakespeare" to which we are 
here introduced for the first time, was not 
the actor's name. Although, as is well known, 
there was no standard of spelling in Shak- 
spere's day, it is to be noted that in all the 
variants of the name prior to 1593, its first 
syllable is short; as Shag, Shack, Shak, or 
Shax. Its original meaning was a common 
spearman, the first syllable meaning rough, 
or rascal, and the last spear, or perhaps spur. 
83 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

The conception of shaking a spear does not 
enter into the name. 

The existing so called signatures, 
whether written by Shakspere himself or by a 
scrivener, are in the form Shaksper and 
Shaxper. It would seem that even Shake- 
spearians should admit the form Shake- 
speare to be a pen name, devised, if not by 
the actor himself, then by another. 

The poem is the work of a scholar, and it 
is our theory that Will Shakspere, at the 
time only a few years in London, was inca- 
pable of its authorship. 

From our point of view therefore, it is 
permissible to conjecture that the rising of 
the name Shakespeare on the literary horizon 
at the time, was an independent happening, 
in some way coincident, and perhaps con- 
nected with Shakspere's London career; and 
to inquire who might have found it conven- 
ient to set a pen name to his work, as well as 
who would have been likely to choose such 
a name as Shakespeare, which added to a 
84 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

classical composition the classical suggestion 
of Pallas Athene, the goddess. 

It is extremely improbable, for instance, 
that any professed poet, desiring the advan- 
tage of a distinguished patronage to god- 
father his essay, would deliberately resign 
that advantage by concealing his identity 
under an assumed name. Rather would he 
have been particularly careful to place his 
own name to the dedication. 

This consideration would seem to exclude 
the known poets from the number of possi- 
bilities. Mr. T. W. White ascribes the Venus 
to Marlowe on internal evidence. But why 
should not Marlowe have used his own name. 

At the time the Venus appeared. Will 
Shakspere was in the service of Lord Strange, 
to whose company he belonged, and it would 
have been unsuitable for him to have ad- 
dressed himself to another patron. Had he 
been capable of writing such verse, he would 
undoubtedly have addressed Lord Strange as 
his patron. 

Thus the scope of our inquiry, after 
85 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

eliminating, as we seem bound to do, the 
actor, and the known poets, is very consider- 
ably narrowed. 

Raleigh or Sidney have been thought pos- 
sibilities, but, admitting even that they might 
have wished to conceal their identity for the 
moment, can it be explained why either of 
them should address in so humble a style, a 
youngster of half their age, and no more than 
their equal in family or position. It must 
be confessed that, in this case at least, the 
trail leads rather plainly Baconwards. 

Although the only verses positively 
known as Bacon's, that remain to us, are his 
metrical versions of seven of the Psalms, and 
less surely, a rendering of a Greek epigram, 
and a dozen other lines, all of them of in- 
ferior merit; yet it is known that by some 
he was accounted a poet. 

In 1603 Bacon wrote to Sir John Davies, 
when James was on his way to England; 

"I commend myself to your love 
and the well using of my name . . 
so desiring you to be good to all con- 
cealed poets &c" 
86 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

And in his Apology, published in 1604, 
Bacon says; 

"I had prepared a Sonnet tending 

to her Majesty's reconcilement to my 

Lord (Essex) which I remember I 

also showed to a great person, one of 

my Lord's nearest friends &c" 

Also, John Davies of Hereford, in his 

Scourge of Folly, published in 1610, says 

that Bacon's wit compelled him to write; 

"And to thy health in Helicon to drinke 
As to her Ballamour the Muse is 

wont ; 
For thou dost her embosom ; and dost 

use 
Her company for sport twixt grave 
affairs." 

In Stow's Annals, published in 1615, 
Bacon's name occurs as the seventh in a list 
of 27 Elizabethan poets. This was prior to 
his versification of the Psalms. 

So that it is evident that we do not pos- 
sess all of Bacon's poems as his acknowl- 
edged work. 

87 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

In 1593 Bacon was a member of Parlia- 
ment, taking a prominent part in political af- 
fairs, heavily in debt and a keen competitor 
for the important post of Attorney General. 
Essex, with whom he was intimate, was back- 
ing his application strongly. Southampton 
w^as one of Essex' intimates, and it is con- 
ceivable that under the circumstances Bacon 
might desire to compliment Southampton 
and gain his support, without making a pub- 
lic avowal of his authorship. The Queen al- 
ready held his attainments rather lightly, 
esteeming them but superficial, and it might 
have gravely endangered his chance of ob- 
taining this serious and weighty position 
were it generally known that he was flirting 
so amorously with the Muse. 

As to the choice of Shakespeare as a pen 
name, we may observe first that something 
like it had been known before, since we learn 
from Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature that 
the names Spavento, horrid fright ; and Spiz- 
zafer, shiver spear, were in use by the Ital- 
ian pantomimists. 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

The attack made by Greene in 1592 upon 
the actor, as Shake scene, may have been a 
factor in the adoption, and adaptation of the 
name Shake speare, this as has been said, 
having been the first appearance .of Shake, 
instead of Shak, in the actor's name. 

However that may be, there is no doubt 
that Bacon was connected in some way with 
the device, for not only did La Jessee, secre- 
tary to the Due d'Anjou, address a Sonnet 
to Bacon in 1595, in which he speaks of 
'votre Pallas,' but Bacon himself, in the same 
year, connected the hyphenated name with 
Pallas, in his Essex device. Then we have 
Jonson in 1623 writing; 

"In each of which he seems to shake 

a lance 
As brandished at the eyes of 

ignorance." 

Thus we have the name Shakespeare 
connected with Pallas, and Pallas connected 
with Bacon; and we find the idea very suit- 
able to a man with Bacon's turn of mind; 
Shake-speare, the goddess of wisdom, fully 
89 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

armed, shaking her spear ; not the actor Will 
Shakspere's name, but sufficiently like it to 
serve for a cloak. 

And so, it may be, the name Shake 
speare was born ; and the success of the poem 
gave it popularity and commercial value. 

The Rape of Lucrece. The Lucrece was 

published in 1594, 
and is undoubtedly by the same hand as the 
Venus, being just as classical and just as 
amorous. 

Attention has already been called to the 
curious connection between the "without end" 
and "without beginning" of the dedication; 
and the finding of "Fr B" in the first words 
of the first two lines, and of "F Bacon" in 
the last words of the two concluding lines of 
the poem. 

That a lawyer wrote the Lucrece seems 
quite clear, as Mr. Castle has pointed out. 
The author brings in expressions learned in 
the court house, in the most tragic moments 
of the story. 

90 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Thus Tarquin, debating whether or no 
he shall commit the crime, says; 

"Why hunt I then for color or ex- 
cuse," color being a legal term for a 
shadow of a reason. 

And Lucrece is as good a lawyer as he, 
when she inquires ; 

"Under what color he commits this 
ill." 

The deed being done, she finds time in 
her tempest of grief to think of a register's 
office to find a name for Night ; 

"Dim register and notary of 
shame," and this leads her to think of 
another simile; 

"Sin ne'er gives a fee; He gratis 
comes;" and she goes on to describe 
Tarquin in terms which a lawyer 
might use in denouncing an opponent. 

Of Collatine she says; 

"I will not poison thee with my 
attaint," 
She recalls the adventures of Helen and 
91 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Paris, the connection of which with her own 
case is obscure, and occasion is taken to bring 
in a description of a picture of Troy, with 
the Trojans watching the Greeks from the 
city walls, which fills seventy six lines of the 
poem. 

The following lines, written by Bacon in 
1624, are taken from his version of the 104th 
Psalm. At this period Bacon was sixty three 
years old, and a sick man. Even with these 
handicaps, and that of the difficulty of the 
subject, the lines are not inferior to many of 
those in the Lucrece; 

"Father and King of Powers both high 
and low 
Whose sounding Fame all creatures 

serve to blow. 
My soul shall with the rest strike up 

thy praise 
And caroll of thy workes and won- 
drous waies. 
* * * * 

The clouds as chariots swift doe 
scoure the sky 
92 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

The stormy winds upon their wings 
doe fly 

His Angels spirits are, that wait his 
Will 

As Flames of Fire his anger they ful- 
fill. 
* * * * 

Let all his works praise him with one 

accord, 
Oh, praise the Lord, my Soule; praise 
ye the Lord." 
Milton did far worse in his translation 
of a Psalm, and surely this specimen of 
verses, indisputably by Bacon, compares 
quite favorably with the one undisputed 
poetical composition of Will Shakspere, 
actor, which commences; 

"Good Frend for Jesus sake forbeare 
To digg the dust encloased heare." 

The Sonnets. The first mention of the Son- 
nets was made in 1598, when 
Francis Meres published his Palladis Tamia, 
or Wits Treasury, containing a partial list 
of the authors of the day who "have enriched 
the English tongue." He says; 
93 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

"The sweet witty soul of Ovid lives 
in mellifluous honey tongued Shake- 
speare; witness his Venus and 
Adonis, his Lucrece, his sugred son- 
nets among his private friends &c." 

In 1599 Jaggard included two of the son- 
nets, Nos. 138 and 144, in the collection en- 
titled the Passionate Pilgrim. 

In 1609 the Sonnets, as we know them, 
were published under the title ; 

"Shake-speare's Sonnets never before 
imprinted" 
with a fantastic dedication which has given 
much concern to the critics; 

"To the onlie begetter of 

These insuing Sonnets 

Mr. W. H. all happiness 

And that eternitie 

promised 

by 

Our everliving poet 

wisheth 

the well wishing 

Adventurer in 

setting 

forth 

94 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Since the whole superstructure which has 
been built up, of friendships existing between 
Will Shakspere and members of the beau 
monde, rests solely upon the dedications pre- 
fixed to the poems, frantic efforts have been 
made to connect the actor with some impor- 
tant personage who is assumed to be alluded 
to in this above dedication, and to be the 
friend addressed in the Sonnets themselves. 

Thus the "onlie begetter" and the "Mr. 
W. H." of the dedication have been arbi- 
trarily transformed into "the author's 
friend" and "Lord so and so," no agreement 
having yet been reached as which particu- 
lar Lord was denoted by Mr. W. H. Among 
the suggested names are those of Southamp- 
ton, Pembroke, Raleigh, Hervey, and a com- 
moner, one William Hewes. 

Now, mark the unreasonableness of 
these attempts ; a begetter is either the author, 
or else the one who gets; that is to say, the 
collector. 

Nor could an humble publisher, like 
Thomas Thorpe, the T. T. who signed the 
dedication, have ventured to address the Earl 
95 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

of Southampton, the Right Honorable Will- 
iam Herbert, Sir Walter Raleigh, or Sir 
William Hervey, as plain "Mr. W. H." Even 
to-day it would be inconceivable presumption 
to do so. 

These verses were composed, it is sup- 
posed, in great part if not wholly, between the 
years 1595 and 1598, when they were men- 
tioned by Meres, the latest about 1603. 

They were not for sale, according to Son- 
net 21, but for private circulation, and were 
handed about for some years. By 1609 some 
one had got hold of those that we now pos- 
sess, and gave them to his publisher friend, 
who then printed them. The dedication is not 
addressed by the author to his patron, but 
by the publisher to the friend who has pre- 
sented him with an opportunity for a pub- 
lishing venture. 

"Mr. W. H." is undoubtedly one William 
Hall, as appears from the dedication itself; 

"Mr. W. Hall." 

In the Isham reprints there is a poem by 
Robert Southwell, the dedication to which 
reads; "W. H. wisheth with long life a pros- 
96 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

perous achievement of his good desires." 
Southwell's poem was procured by William 
Hall, and printed for him by G. Eld, who 
was also the printer of the Shakespeare Son- 
nets for Thorpe. 

"And that eternitie promised by our ever- 
living poet." This poet was the author of 
the Sonnets, who insists in many places upon 
this eternity; as in Sonnets 18, 19, 55, 63, 65, 
and in several others. Still are we debating 
who this poet and his friend may be. 

There is no doubt about "T. T." for his 
name is found in the Register of the Station- 
ers Company; 

"20 May 1609, Thomas Thorpe, a 
book called Shake-speare's Sonnets." 
Thus the much discussed dedication re- 
solves itself into the following; 
To the Procurer 
of these Sonnets 
Mr W Hall; 
happiness and the eternity 
promised by their author 

is the wish of 
the enterprising publisher 

Thomas Thorpe. 
97 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

In 1598, which we may take to be about 
the date when the majority of the Sonnets 
had been composed, Pembroke, as William 
Herbert became in 1601, was only 18 years 
old; Southampton was 25; Essex 31 years; 
Will Shakspere 34; Bacon 37; Sir Philip 
Sidney 44, and Raleigh 46 years old. 

The Sonnets number 154; of which the 
first seventeen are known as the Procreative 
Sonnets, being addressed to a young man who 
is advised to reproduce himself, "for love of 
me." The feverish anxiety expressed by one 
man concerning another man's procreative 
exercises is too much overdone to be more 
than an affectation. 

Sonnets 18-126 continue to be ad- 
dressed, in a very passionate strain, to a man. 
The poet describes himself as old and selfish, 
while his love is a boy. There are hints of a 
quarrel, of jealousy of other men, of forgive- 
ness, of shame, and of a scandal; most of it 
mere drivel. Sonnet 126, which is a canzon- 
ette, and complete in itself, completes this 
series. Sonnet 107, by the way, is supposed 
98 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

to congratulate Southampton upon his re- 
lease from prison, which, if correct, would 
lead to the conclusion that Southampton was 
the friend addressed, Southampton the 
patron to whom the Venus and the Lucrece 
were dedicated; and would also fix the date 
of composition of this Sonnet, since South- 
ampton's release from the Tower occurred 
on April 10, 1603. 

Sonnets 127-152 are ostensibly ad- 
dressed to a woman, but are so extremely un- 
flattering that one may be excused for doubt- 
ing that they were addressed to any real per- 
son. The lady is described as unattractive 
and with a bad breath; she is "black as hell," 
and so are her deeds. Their love is unlawful, 
and she is his "worser spirit." Sonnet 145, 
included in this series, is considered to be by 
another hand. 

Sonnets 153-4 are an original transla- 
tion of a Greek epigram, to the effect that 
Love's torch having gone out while he slept, 
it was relighted by the eyes of the poet's mis- 
tress. 

99 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

A biographical character is universally 
assigned to these sonnets, although a great 
deal that is in them is evidently mere affecta- 
tion, such as prevailed in the sonneteering 
period. 

There can be little doubt that the author 
of the Venus and of the Lucrece is also the 
author of the Sonnets. 

Take the following lines from the Venus, 
where the goddess is endeavoring to argue 
Adonis into reciprocating her passion; 

163. Torches are made to light, jewels to 
wear, 
Dainties to taste, fresh beauties for 
the use. 
Herbs for their smell and sappy plants 
to bear. 
Things growing to themselves are 
growths abuse; 
Seeds spring from seed and beauty 
breedeth beauty, 

Thou wast begot — to get it is thy duty. 

169. Upon the earth's increase why 
shouldst thou feed, 

100 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Unless the earth with thy increase 
be fed? 
By law of Nature thou art bound to 
breed, 
That thine may live when thou thy- 
self are dead; 
And so in spite of death thou dost sur- 
vive 
In that thy likeness still is left alive. 

751. Therefore despite of fruitless chastity, 
Love lacking vestals, and self lov- 
ing nuns, 
That on the earth would breed a 
scarcity 
And barren dearth of daughters and 
of sons. 
Be prodigal, the lamp that burns by 

night 
Dries up his oil to lend the world his 
light. 

757. What is thy body but a swallowing 
grave 
Seeming to bury that posterity 
Which by the rights of time thou 
needst must have 
101 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

If thou destroy them not in dark 
obscurity 

If so the world \Yill hold thee in dis- 
dain 

Sith in thy pride so fair a hope is 
slain. 

and compare with the first seventeen Sonnets, 
from which the following are a few of the 
lines ; 

3. But if thou live, remembered not to be 

Die single, and thine image dies vdth 

thee. 

13. Dear my love, you know 

You had a father ; let your son say so. 

15. When I perceive that men as plants 
increase 
Cheered and check'd even by the 
self same sky 
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height 
decrease 
And wear their brave state out of 
memory ; 

We may question whether this line of 
argument was likely to influence the youth- 
102 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

fill Adonis, but we may not question the 
conclusion that the author of the Venus and 
the author of the Sonnets, were one. 

Sir Sidney Lee sees in Southampton the 
friend to whom the Sonnets are addressed, 
and thinks that several of the Sonnets em- 
body language almost identical with that in 
the dedication to Lucrece; or in other words, 
that they were ^Titten by the author of the 
Lucrece. See, for example, Sonnet 26. 

Yet, despite the supposed intimacy be- 
tween Southampton ,and Will Shakspere; 
despite the real intimacy which must have 
existed between the author of the Sonnets 
and their inspirer, there is no mention of 
Shakspere in Southampton's existing letters 
or papers. 

That the real authorship is concealed un- 
der an assumed name is proclaimed in Son- 
nets 72 and 76. 

"My name be buried where my body is 
And live no more to shame nor me 
nor you. 

103 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Why write I still all one, ever the 

same 
And keep invention in a noted weed 
That every word doth almost tell my 
name." 
"Invention" meaning his compositions, 
and "weed" a garment or cloak, as the word 
is used in Sonnet 2, The meaning still sur- 
vives in our phrase, widow's weeds ! 

So, when we read of "Shakespeare's 
sugred Sonnets" we understand that Shakes- 
peare is a pseudonym, made noted by the 
success of Venus and of Lucrece. 

The passionate love for young men ex- 
pressed in the Sonnets accords very well with 
Bacon's character, for like his master, James 
I, By the Grace of God King of England, 
&c., he has been charged with the vice of an 
erotic fancy for young men. And both 
Southampton and Pembroke were notori- 
ously licentious. 

The "rival poet" of Sonnets 80-86 has 
been plausibly identified with George Chap- 
man, and the "proud full sail of his great 
104 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

verse." Chapman is known to have sought 
Southampton's patronage in 1596-7 for his 
translation of the Iliad. 

A rather showy identification has been 
conceived by Judge Stotsenburg of Sir Philip 
Sidney as the author of the Sonnets; of 
Lady Penelope Rich, for whom Sidney had 
a fancy, as the Dark Lady; and of Sir Ed- 
ward Dyer, Sidney's friend, as the friend of 
the Sonnets. But it is based upon a misap- 
prehension of the line in Sonnet 20; 

"A man in hue, all hues in his con- 
trolling." 

Naturally, a dyer has all hues in his 
controlling, but hue, formerly spelled hew, 
and from the anglo saxon hiw, means form, 
not color, and is so used elsewhere in the 
Sonnets. Thus in Sonnet 82; 

"As fair in knowledge as in hue." 
And in Sonnet 104; 

"So your sweet hew, which methinks 
still doth stand 
Hath motion." 
In these instances the sense requires the 
105 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

meaning, form or shape, and in Sonnet 20 
the meaning is ; 

"A man in form, all forms in his con- 
trolling." 

Referring undoubtedly to the possible re- 
sults of the procreative activities so highly 
recommended by our poet. 

In Sonnet 76 the author conceives that 
he is making plain both his own name and 
the name of the friend to whom he writes; 

"every word doth almost tell my 
name 
Showing their birth and where they 
did proceed." 

Unfortunately, we no longer understand 
the allusions, and the birth as well as the 
destination of the lines is still disputed. 

The punning Sonnets, 135, 136, 143, do 
not assist us. The author says that the 
Dark Lady has her will, for his name is 
Will; William Shakespeare, his pseudonym. 

During the years in which the Sonnets 
w^ere written, our actor was pursuing his 
lucrative but humble calling; touring the 
106 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

provinces with his fellow apes, puppets, jug- 
glers and clowns; was trying, with others of 
his kind, to enter the ranks of gentility, and 
was being ridiculed for it; was just one of 
carpenter Burbage's men players; was suing 
Philip Rogers of Stratford for two shillings ; 
and was tricking his fellow Burbage out of 
his mistress' favors, or seducing an inn 
keeper's wife at Oxford. 

If Will Shakspere had indeed been 
Southampton's intimate, as we are asked 
to believe by those who believe that he wrote 
the Sonnets, would not his personal history 
have been written in larger letters? 

The series of probabilities above set 
forth may now be summarized as follows ; 

1. Venus, Lucrece and the Sonnets are 
from the same hand. 

2. That hand was not Will Shaks- 
pere's, 

a. Because there are no known 
facts in his life to support 
the belief, and the facts we 
have are inconsistent with 
it. 

107 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

b. Because his patron was Lord 

Strange, not the Earl of 
Southampton. 

c. Because his name was not 

Shakespeare, but a name 
vocally and etymologically 
different. 

d. Because the name Shakespeare, 

prefixed to the Sonnets, was 
avowedly a pen name, a 
noted weed. It was noted, 
because the success of Lu- 
crece had made it so. It 
was not Shakspere's, be- 
cause it was too like his real 
name to serve as a disguise. 

e. Because he was never contem- 

poraneously identified \\ath 
the author of the poems. 

3. Kno\\Ti poets, that is professional 
poets, would have used their own 
names. 

4. We know^ that Bacon had written a 
Sonnet before 1604, and that he was 

108 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

known as a poet by his contem- 
poraries before 1610, although the 
only surviving acknowledged verses 
of his were written in 1624. 

5. Bacon had a sufficiently good reason 
at the moment for concealing his 
identity as the author. 

6. The amorous character of the poems 
answers to the known disposition of 
both Bacon and of Southampton. 

For those who accept these conclusions, 
Shakspere's fancied friendships with the 
great ones of the earth must vanish into noth- 
ingness, for there is absolutely no evidence 
in support of them except the name William 
Shakespeare attached to the Venus, the Lu- 
crece and the Sonnets. 



109 



CHAPTER IV 
The First Folio 

If Ben Jonson had written nothing con- 
cerning Shakspere but the Ode to his Be- 
loved, which is among the prefatory matter 
to the folio of 1623, we should either have 
to accept the distinct identification there 
made of the actor with the author, or we 
should have to flatly decline to do so, because 
of the inherent improbability of Jonson's 
eulogies. 

Happily, Honest Ben has spared us the 
unpleasant necessity of choosing which horn 
of the dilemma we prefer, by recording, or 
having recorded for him, upon at least half 
a dozen occasions, when he was not under 
contract to write a paean of praise, his opin- 
ion of Will Shakspere. These extra folian 
pronouncements are mutually consistent, but 
are all at variance with the Ode; the weight 
and purport of which is thereby greatly mod- 
ified. 

110 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

The folio came into existence in the fol- 
lowing way: 

By 1623 the little circle of the Burbage 
players had lost some of its principal mem- 
bers. Richard Burbage, its star, died in 
1618; William Kemp, the clown, had left it 
in 1602, and is not heard of after 1605, and 
Augustine Phillips died in 1605. 

John Fletcher had succeeded the older 
writers as the lion of the dramatic authors. 
He collaborated with Field, Massinger, Row- 
ley and others, and was the dramatist for the 
King's players. The Shakespeare plays were 
no longer new, and were given but infre- 
quently ; and their owners, who were also the 
owners of the theatre, to wit; the Burbage 
heirs, Heminge, and Condell, saw a possible 
profit in collecting and publishing them from 
their own copies in order to displace the 
pirated editions then in the market. 

The charges of publishing were borne 
by Wm. Jaggard, Ed. Blount, J. Smithweeke 
and W. Aspley. 

The ever-needy Ben Jonson was engaged 
111 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

to give the book a literary send-off. He was 
a most suitable person for the purpose, hav- 
ing published his own works in 1616, the 
first writer to undertake such an enterprise. 
Besides this, he was the foremost literary 
man in England ; and the poet laureate, hav- 
ing been so created by Letters Patent dated 
February 1, 1616, with a pension of 100 
marks a year, later increased by Charles I 
to 100 pounds. 

The poems were not included in the folio, 
which contained but 36 plays, Pericles being 
omitted. 

Some of the plays are more complete than 
in the quartos; some are less complete; they 
were evidently published without editing. 

Twenty of them were here published for 
the first time. 

About two hundred copies of the first 
folio are now in existence, of which it is said 
-j- that less than twenty copies contain the por- 
trait printed, and not inserted, on the title 
page. 

112 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

The verses which introduce the portrait 
are signed "B. I.," or Ben Jonson, and are 
written in a style which obituary poetry has 
rendered familiar to us all; 

TO THE READER 

"This figure, that thou here seest put, 
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut; 
Wherein the Graver had a strife 
With Nature, to outdoo the life. 
O, could he but have drawne his wit 
As well in brasse as he hath hit 
His face; the print would then sur- 

passe 
All, that was ever writt in brasse. 
But since he cannot, Reader, looke 
Not on his Picture, but his Booke." 

The lines asserting that the Graver had 
a strife with Nature to outdoo the life are 
not original, but are to be found in other 
eulogies of the time. It is all dreadfully poor 
stuff. 

The book is dedicated to Pembroke and 
Montgomery, the "Incomparable Paire of 
113 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Brethren, who have prosequuted both these 
trifles and their Author living with so much 
favour"; that is to say, who have attended 
and approved the performances, for there is 
no evidence that they ever did more. 

Heminge and Condell, who signed the 
Dedication, are made to say that they have 
collected the plays and done an office to the 
dead, who is "by death departed from that 
right . . . without ambition of selfe 
profit or fame." 

Nevertheless, in the Address to the Great 
Variety of Readers, which follows, and 
which also is signed by Heminge and Con- 
dell, the public is urged to buy the book; 
"But, whatever you do. Buy." The public 
is informed that it was before "abused with 
diverse stolne and surreptitious copies," but 
that these are now offered "cured and per- 
fect of their limbs, and all the rest, absolute 
in their numbers, as he conceived them 
. . . His mind and hand went together, 
and what he thought, he uttered with that 
114 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

easiness that we have scarse received from 
him a blot in his papers." 

These two addresses are universally at- 
tributed to Jonson, who, in his "Discoveries," 
referring to the claim that Shakespeare never 
blotted a line, sardonically remarks that his 
friends chose that circumstance to commend 
their friend wherein he most faulted. 

Next we have some lines by Hugh Hol- 
land, beginning; 

"Those hands which you so clapt, go 
now, and wring 
You Britaines brave; for done are 
Shakespeare's dayes:" 

and a Catalogue of the Plays, numbering 
only 35, for Troilus and Cressida, although 
contained in the folio, was omitted in cata- 
loguing; and Pericles is not included in the 
book. 

And so at last we come to Jonson's verses 

to the Author. It must be confessed that the 

Plays were sufficiently prefaced, although it 

would have been well had the editors thought 

115 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

it worth while to give us some account of the 
life and personality of the author, and fewer 
fireworks. 

To the Memory of my Beloved 

the Author 

Mr. William Shakespeare 

and 

what he hath left us. 

Now it must be insisted upon that Will 
Shakspere was not Jonson's Beloved. On the 
contrary, Jonson lost no opportunity of at- 
tacking our actor in his most vigorous man- 
ner. Thus ; 

In "Every Man out of his Humor," 1599, 
he pillories Shakspere as Sogliardo, a well-to- 
do clown, with an ambition to become a gen- 
tleman, at any cost. Sogliardo purchases 
arms; "By this parchment, gentlemen, I 
have been so toiled among the harrots yon- 
der you will not believe ... I can 
write myself gentleman now; here's my 
Patent; it cost me thirty pound ... it 
is your boar without a head, rampant." 
116 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

And the jester Carlo, who is tutoring the 
clown, strikes in; 

Carlo — A swine without a head ; without 
braine, wit, anything indeed, ramping to gen- 
tility. 

Puntavarlo — Let the word be 'Not with- 
out mustard,' your crest is very rare, sir. 

Shakspere's motto, it will be remembered, 
for this passage has been quoted in a former 
chapter, was 'Non sanz droict.' 

In the "Poetaster," again, in 1601, where 
Jonson presents himself as Horace, attacked 
by two scribblers, Crispinus and Demetrious, 
under which names he satirizes Marston and 
Dekker, he introduces a braggart captain, 
one Tucca, who asks Histrio, an actor, if he 
knows Pantalahus; one who takes all, a 
plagiarist; 

"a gent'man parcel poet; his father 
was a man of worship, I tell thee — 
he pens high, lofty, in a new talking 
strain, bigger than half the rhymers 
in town." 

117 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

This also conceeded to be a drive at 
Shakspere as a thief of plays. 

Jonson has been accused of ingratitude 
in thus attacking Shakspere, and there is a 
story to the effect that, when a little known 
author, he wanted the Burbages to produce 
"Every Man in his Humor" in 1 598, the play 
was about to be rejected, when the gentle 
Shakespeare intervened, and succeeded in 
having the piece accepted. 

Unfortunately for the truth of the only 
anecdote which presents Shakspere to us as 
the doer of a kind or generous action, "Every 
Man in his Humor" was played by Hen- 
slowe's company before this date; having 
been first presented on November 25, 1596, 
and a number of times subsequently, with 
great success. Neither the poet nor the play 
was unknown in 1598. 

The first twelve lines of the Ode form a 
labored apology; 

"To draw no envy (Shakespeare) on 
thy name. 
Am I thus ample to thy Booke, and 
Fame; 

118 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

While I confesse thy writings to be 

such 
As neither Man, nor Muse, can praise 

too much, 
'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. Bui 

these wayes 
Were not the paths I meant unto thy 

praise: 
For seeliest Ignorance on these may 

light, 
Which, when it sounds at best, but 

ecchos right; 
Or blinde Affection, which doth ne're 

advance 
The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all 

by chance; 
Or crafty Malice, might pretend this 

praise. 
And thinke to ruine, where it seem'd 

to raise." 

Surely this is a remarkable introduction 
to an eulogistic poem. It is not unnatural 
nor unusual to praise an author in a prefa- 
tory notice to his works, and it does not 
necessarily call down ridicule or malice to do 
119 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

so. Why, then, did Jonson hedge in this 
way, as if to protect himself against antici- 
pated assaults upon his position? 

Why should Malice think he meant to 
ruin Shakspere by overpraise, unless indeed, 
there was some reason for the charge. He 
owns himself that he is praising him 
abundantly. And, above all, what way was 
it 'he meant unto his praise' ? 

The Ode continues; 

"I, therefore, will begin, Soule of the 

Age! 
The applause ! delight ! the wonder of 

our Stage! 
My Shakespeare, rise; I will not 

lodge thee by 
Chaucer, or Spencer, or bid Beau- 
mont lye 
A little further, to make thee a roome ; 
Thou are a Moniment, without a 

tombe, 
And art alive still, while thy Booke 

doth live. 
And we have wits to read, and praise 

to give." 

120 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Note the exclamation points in the first 
two lines above. The statements were not 
true at the time; Shakespeare was vietix jeu 
for the moment, and Fletcher was reigning 
on the stage. 

The fourth and fifth lines allude to a 
Sonnet to Mr William Shakespeare which 
had recently been put forth by William 
Basse, in which it is said; 

"Renowned Spencer, lye a thought 
more nye 
To learned Chaucer, and rare Beau- 
mont lye 
A little nearer Spenser, to make roome 
For Shakespeare in your threefold, 
fourfold tombe," 

But Jonson will have none of that ; com- 
pare the above lines with the epigram to the 
Poet Ape, already quoted ; 

"Poor Poet Ape, that would be thought 
our chief, 
Whose works are e'en the frippery 
of wit; 
121 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

From brokage, is become so bold a 
thief 
As we, the robbed, leave rage, and 
pity it. 

He takes up all, makes each man's wit 
his own. 

And, told of this, slights it. Tut, such 
crumes 
The sluggish, gaping auditor de- 
vours ; 

He marks not whose 'twas first; and 
after times 
May judge it to be his, as well as 
ours." 

Skipping a little in the Ode, we come upon 
this; 

"And though thou hadst small Latine, 

and lesse Greeke 
From thence to honour thee, I would 

not seeke 
For names; but call forth thund'ring 

AEschilus 
Euripides, and Sophocles to us, 
Paccuuius, Accius, him of Cordova 
dead, 

122 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

To life again, to hear thy buskin 

tread, 
And shake a stage; or, when thy 

socks were on, 
Leave thee alone, for the comparison 
Of all, that insolent Greece, or 

haughtie Rome 
Sent forth, or since did from their 

ashes come." 

Commenting on this, we note that Rowe 
relates that in conversation with Suckling, 
Davenant, Porter, and Hales of Eton, Jon- 
son insisted on Shakespeare's want of learn- 
ing, until Hales had to stop him. 

Shakspere may have had small learning, 
but Jonson thought well of his acting, for 
he wanted to call up AEschilus and the other 
ancient worthies to hear his buskin tread 
and shake the stage. 

The line about 'insolent Greece and 
haughtie Rome' occurs also, as every one 
knows, in Jonson's "Discoveries," which was 
written about 1630, but not published until 
1641, four years after Jonson's death. Under 
123 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

the head of Scriptorum Catalogus, they are 
applied to Bacon, who is said to be he Vho 
hath filled up all numbers and performed 
that in our tongue which may be compared 
or preferred either to insolent Greece or 
Haughty Rome.' 

After another interval, the Ode con- 
tinues ; 

"Yet must I not give Nature all; thy 

Art, 
My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy 

a part. 
For though the Poets matter. Nature 

be, 
His Art doth give the fashion. And 

that he 
Who casts to write a living line, must 

sweat, 

(Such as thine are) and strike the 

second heat 
Upon the Muses anvil: turn the same, 

(And himself with it) that he thinkes 

to frame; 
Or for the lawrell, he may gaine a 

scorne, 

124 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

For the good Poet's made, as well as 

borne. 
And such wert thou. Looke how the 

fathers face 
Lives in his issue, even so, the race 

Of Shakespeares minde, and man- 
ners brightly shines 
In his well torned and true filed lines : 

In each of which, he seems to shake 

a lance 
As brandisht at the eyes of Ignorance. 

Sweet Swan of Avon ! what a sight it 

were 
To see thee in our waters yet ap- 

peare, &c. 

It is a pity to cavil at these fine lines; 
but what must we think of them when we 
find Jonson telling Drummond of Haw- 
thorndon in 1619, that Shakespeare "wanted 
arte," and of that passage in his "Discov- 
eries," De Shakespeare Nostrati, where he 
says of Shakespeare that he most faulted in 
that "he never blotted out a line." 

"He was indeed honest and of a 
free open nature, had an excellent 
125 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

fancy, brave notions and gentle ex- 
pressions, wherein he flowed with that 
facility that sometimes it was neces- 
sary he should be stopped. 'Suf- 
flaminandus erat (he needed to be 
shut up), as Augustus said of 
Haterius. His wit was in his own 
power : would the rule of it had been 
so too. Many times he fell into those 
things could not escape laughter 
. . . But he ever redeemed his 
vices with his virtues. There was ever 
more in him to be praised than to be 
pardoned." 

Such was the modest estimation in which 
Jonson held Will Shakspere, and when he 
adds "I loved the man, and do honour his 
memory on this side idolatry as much as 
any," we may be assured that the honor he 
gave him was very considerably this side of 
idolatry. When he was not paid to be adula- 
tory, Jonson describes Will Shakspere as 
Sogliardo, the well to do clown; as Panta- 
labus, the man who takes all; or as the Poet 
126 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Ape, that bold thief; as the man who wanted 
arte, as he told Drummond; who wanted 
learning, as he told Hales and the rest; as 
the actor who sometimes made himself ridicu- 
lous on the stage ; the man whose tongue and 
pen flowed so freely that he needed to be shut 
up ; and finally that wonder of the stage who 
had more in him to be praised than to be 
pardoned. 

What then are the lines of the Ode but 
pardonable poetical exaggeration? It is no 
crime to exaggerate a little upon such an oc- 
casion. Nearly every advertiser to sell his 
wares, does as much. The whole introductory 
matter is of a like character ; the verses to the 
portrait ; the statement that the collection was 
made without ambition of profit, followed by 
the exhortation to buy ; and the statement that 
the plays are absolute in their numbers as he 
conceived them, and the like. 

Jonson was not a man of so high minded 
a moral character as to be above the suspi- 
cion of such offenses as we are attributing 
to him. When in prison in 1598 for having 
127 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

killed Gabriel Spencer in a duel, he turned 
Roman Catholic, not from conviction, but as 
he said himself, "taking the priests word for 
it;" and later wrote a letter to Lord Salisbury 
which showed that he was willing to spy >i 
upon, and inform against his fellow 
Catholics. 

And in 1619 he told Drummond a very 
unedifying story about himself. In 1613, it 
appears, he was in France, acting as gov- 
ernor to the son of Sir Walter Raleigh, who 
exhibited him, dead drunk upon a car, 
"which he made to be drawn by pioneers 
through the streets, at every corner showing 
his governor stretched out, and telling them 
that was a more lively image of a crucifix 
than any they had." Evidently the youth 
felt but little respect for his tutor. 

Returning to the folio; the Ode is fol- 
lowed by two tributes, one by Leonard 
Digges, in which occurs the line which in- 
forms us the monument at Stratford was 
already in existence; 

"And time dissolves thy Strat- 
ford Moniment," 
128 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 



and finally a list of the principal actors in 
all these plays, containing twenty-six names. 

Of the sixteen plays which had appeared 
in print before 1623, some are more com- 
plete in the folio than in the quartos, and 
these, we infer, were printed in the folio as 
written, and not as acted ; for the acting ver- 
sions were frequently curtailed. Mr. Edwin 
Reed has compiled the results of the com- 
parison of eleven of the plays. For example; 

Henry VI contains 1139 lines, and 
2,000 changes not in the 1619 quarto. 

Merry Wives is nearly double the length 
of, and quite different from the 1619 quarto. 

Taming of the Shrew contains 1,000 
lines more than the 1607 quarto. 

Henry V has the choruses, two scenes, 
and 1655 lines not in the 1608 quarto. 

On the other hand, Hamlet is shorter in 
the folio than in the 1694 quarto, and some 
of the finest passages are omitted, doubtless 
for representation on the stage. 

Some of the plays are divided into Acts 
and Scenes ; some into Acts without any divi- 
129 

/ 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

sion into scenes. Hamlet, with surprising 
carelessness, has no di\'isions after Act II, 
Scene 2. 

In Richard III, twelve printer's errors 
are reproduced from the 1622 quarto. 

Troilus is not even catalogued, nor is it 
paged except for the first few pages. 

In some of the plays the names of the 
actors who played the parts are given instead 
of their part names. Thus we learn that 
Kempe played Dogberry, and Cowley 
Verges, in Much Ado About Nothing; that 
Harvey played Bardolph, and Rossill Peto 
in 1 Henry IV. Sinkler, Bates, Court, 
Williams and others, in all about twenty five 
names of actors, it is said, are made kno'^Ti 
to us in their parts through these oversights. 

What then becomes of the theories of 
careful editing, and of the assertion of 
Heminge and Condell that instead of the 
stolen, surreptitious copies with which the 
public was formerly abused, these are now 
offered cured and perfect of their limbs? 

On the contrary, it appears that Heminge 
130 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

and Condell collected the plays, and brought 
them to the publishers direct from the 
theatre, and that they were printed from those 
copies without correction. 

It may be interesting to inquire as to how 
Heminge and Condell obtained possession 
of the plays, and to whom they belonged; for 
they certainly did not belong to Will Shaks- 
pere's estate. Did they belong to the theatre 
owners, or to the company of actors? Either 
was possible; plays were o\Mied in either 
way; Henslowe the theatre owner, counted 
his stock of plays on March 3 1598, and had 
25 plays. We may therefore inquire as to 
the ownership of the Globe and Blackfriars 
theatres, with which Heminge and Condell 
were connected. 

The Globe Theatre was originally built 
in 1599, and finished in July of that year; 
was burned down on June 29 1613, and was 
rebuilt in the following year. 

The Burbages, Richard and Cuthbert, 
had a half interest in it. The other half was 
divided into eight shares, held by Shakspere, 
131 



Si 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Heminge, Phillips, Pope, and Kempe, later 
Condell was added, and later still. Ostler 
and Field. 

These interests could be devised; Pope 
died 1603-4, willing his interest; Shakspere 
had evidently disposed of his interest upon 
leaving London, and by 1627 we find the 
owners reduced to four, Heminge and 
Condell having bought in the other actors' 
shares. Cuthbert Burbage, Mrs. Robinson, 
who was Richard Burbage's widow; 
Heminge, and Condell, each owned four 
shares. 

As to the Blackfriars Theatre, it was 
completed by the end of 1596, and was then 
leased to Thos. Evans for the Children of 
the Chapel, or as they were subsequently 
called, of the Queens Revels. In August 
1608, the Burbages took over the lease, and 
placed their own men in the theatre, and 
joined them partners in the profits of the 
house. The ownership seems to have been 
at that time, in eight shares, held by the two 
Burbages, Shakspere, Heminge, Condell and 
Ostler. 

132 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

In 1634 the owners were Cuthbert 
Burbage, Mrs. Robinson, Jno Shank, Mrs 
Condell, Jos Taylor, Jno Lowin and Jno 
Underwood, eight shares in all; Shank hold- 
ing two shares. 

In April 1612, according to Collier, 
Edward Alleyn paid, with the incorrigible 
English liking for odd sums, 599 pds 6 sh 
8 d, for an interest in the Blackfriars theatre, 
possibly for Shakspere's share. Alleyn died 
Nov 25 1626, and his interest must have 
passed back to the actors in the Kings com- 
pany before 1634. 

As a matter of collateral interest, it was 
testified by Thomasin Ostler in 1616, that 
the theatre shares, having then twenty one 
years to run, were worth, for the whole issue, 
4,200 pounds for the Globe, and 2,100 
pounds for the Blackfriars theatre. 

At no time therefore, did Heminge and 
Condell own either of the theatres entirely, 
and if the plays had belonged to the owners, 
or housekeepers, as they were called, we 
should expect to find their names joined with 
133 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Heminge and Condell in the introductory 
matter to the folio. But they are not there. 

Turning to the actor's companies, we 
find that they also owned plays. Henslowe 
made a number of entries of money lent to 
the Lord Admiral's men for the purchase of 
plays from the writers ; as for instance ; 

March 30 1598. Lent unto the 
Company to give Mr. Willsone, 4- 
Dickers, Drayton and Cheatall, in 
parte payment of a booke called 
Pierce of Exstone (Richard II) the 
some of 40 sh. 

There are a number of similar entries. 

Of the eight actors of the Kings com- 
pany, who together with Shakspere, were 
named in James license of May 17 1603, and 
who paraded with him on March 15 1604, 
on the occasion of the King's entry into 
London, for their four and a half yards of 
red cloth apiece; only Heminge and Condell 
were left by 1623. Richard Burbage died 
March 13 1618, Augustine Phillips on May 
4 1605, and William Slye on August 13 
134 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

1608. Fletcher, Armin and Cowley appear 
to have left the company before 1623. 

It is a reasonable conclusion that the 
plays, the last of which, Henry VIII, 
appeared in 1612, belonged to the actors. 
Heminge was Treasurer of the company, and 
the plays were probably in his possession. 
He and Condell were retiring from the 
stage, and as literary executors and residuary 
legatees of the old company, gathered to- 
gether the old plays and looked for a pub- 
lisher, in order to realize upon this asset. 
Troilus was found at the last moment, and 
added after the catalogue was printed; 
Pericles was overlooked altogether. 

But the plays were no longer as popular 
as formerly, and it was not easy to find a 
publisher willing to undertake the enterprise. 
In the lists of Court performances given in 
the years 1613 and 1623 inclusive, we find 
only three representations of Shakespeare 
plays named. But finally four publishers 
agreed to share the risk of the undertaking, 
and the work was issued. From these doubts 
135 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

and difficulties sprang the need of the elab- 
orate puffiing of the prefatory matter, and the 
numerous typographical errors w^th which 
the book is disfigured. 

But, even if Jonson's testimony to the 
great value of Will Shakspere's contribution 
to the plays be discredited, as it would be in 
any modern court of justice, yet we must be- 
lieve that he had some share in them. Not 
only Jonson, in references made elsewhere to 
Shakspere's work; but Greene, and Davies, 
tell us that he did some work on the plays; 
and they all agree as to what that work was; 
he fixed up old plays, and popularised them 
by adding comic scenes; nothing more. He 
was not a great man, nor a great author, but 
he did what was in him to do. 

And so, while Ben Jonson, the literary 
man, left a good library. Will Shakspere — 
actor and comic, left none. 



136 



CHAPTER V 

Multiple Authorship. 

To the casual reader, the plays of Shake- 
speare appear to be nearly uniform in excel- 
lence of style and of thought ; to him Shake- 
speare is always Shakespeare. 

That this is not the case is well known 
to students of the plays. It has been well 
said that Shakespeare is a noise of many 
waters, and the only debatable questions con- 
cern the proper apportionment of the work 
of the different writers who have contributed 
to the works. 

Nor is the quality of the plays any more 
uniform than their style. Critics divided 
them into three or four classes, according to 
their merit; and there is as wide a difference 
between Macbeth and Titus Andronicus, for 
example, as between Midsummer Nights 
Dream and the Taming of the Shrew, or be- 
tween Hamlet and Pericles as there is between 
137 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

the work of a master and that of a tyro, some 
of the inferior plays being very poor stuff 
indeed. 

How these differences of style and of 
quality arose I shall endeavor to suggest; 
always for the benefit of the casual reader; 
by a brief reference to the dramatic methods 
of the time. And first, the practise of collab- 
oration demands our attention. 

For it is well known that in Shakespeare's 
day, theatre managers often engaged several 
authors to write upon a play, in order to 
expedite the work. During the two years 
during which the company of players to 
which Will Shakspere belonged, occupied 
Henslowes' theatre; that is from June 1594 
to July 1596, a new play was given, on an 
average, every eighteen days. To keep up 
this rate of production, it was necessary that 
plays should be turned out with expedition, 
and this was accomplished by engaging a 
number of writers, sometimes as many as six, 
in the composition of a play. 

We find, in the memoranda left by 
138 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 



Henslowe, the names of about a dozen 
writers, some of them very well known, whom 
he employed in the work of writing, revis- 
ing, or adding to plays to be used in his 
theatres. As for example: 



Henry Chettle 



Thomas Dekker 



Michael Drayton 



Originally, it is be- 
lieved, a printer. 
He was engaged 
upon forty nine 
plays, of which 
only thirteen were 
wholly his. 
Who collaborated 
in fifty two plays, 
with nearly every 
author of the day. 
Like Will Shak- 
pere, a Warwick- 
shire man, a fact 
to be noted by 
those who seek to 
prove Shakspere's 
authorship by cit- 
ing local refer- 



139 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 



William Haughton 



Ben Jonson 



ences occurring m 
the plays. Dray- 
ton was an actor, a 
poet, and a drama- 
tist. He wrote 
about twenty plays 
which were very 
popular. 

Who wrote one 
very successful 
play alone, and 
collaborated with 
'Chettle, Dekker 
and Day. 
Also wrote for 
Henslowe. His 
father was a min- 
ister. He spent 
some time at Cam- 
bridge; he was a 
soldier, an actor, a 
dramatist, and the 
second of Eng- 
land's Poet Lau- 
reates. 



140 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 



Thomas Middleton 



Anthony Monday 



John Webster 



Robert Wilson 



A man of good 
family ; a Cam- 
bridge graduate, 
and of Greys Inn. 
His play "The 
Chan geling" is 
hardly equalled, 
outside of Shake- 
speare. 

An actor, and a 
traveler in Italy 
and in France. He 
collaborated with 
Drayton, Wilson, 
and Hathway. 
A writer of the 
first rank. His 
"White Devil" is 
a tragedy not much 
less remarkable 
than Shake- 
speare's. 

Of whom not much 
is known, except 



141 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

that he was 
praised by Meres 
as being "for 
learning and wit, 
without company 
or compere." 
Robert Greene A Cambridge man, 

who studied medi- 
cine, traveled in 
Spain and Italy, 
and wrote about a 
dozen plays. 
These, with Thomas Kyd, John Day, 
and Richard Hathway, constituted Hens- 
lowes staff of writers ; that is, the staff of one 
theatre manager. 

Some of the greatest names of the age 
remain to be mentioned; Beaumont, Chap- 
man, Fletcher, Ford, Heywood, Lodge, Mar- 
lowe, Marston, Massinger, Nash and Peele. 
Some one has counted the names of forty 
noteworthy, and two hundred and twenty 
three minor writers in the Elizabethan era, 
some of them not far inferior to Shakespeare; 
142 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

more particularly Beaumont, Marlowe, 
Webster and Drayton. 

Such were the dramatists of the period, 
of that glorious period when the new world 
was really new to Europe, and when Eng- 
land was laying the foundations of its future 
greatness. It formed a galaxy of talent well 
able to supply all that the plays contain of 
law, of medicine, of seamanship or classical 
knowledge, of familiarity with foreign 
countries; of everything in short, that Will 
Shakspere could not supply. 

Nearly all of them wrote in collaboration 
with others, and to many of them a share has 
been ascribed in the composition of the 
Shakespeare plays. 

Between 1591 and 1601 Henslowe paid 
for or produced a number of plays with iden- 
tical, or at least similar titles with some of 
the Shakespeare plays. 

And between June 1594 and July 1596 
the Lord Chamberlain's men, of whom Will 
Shakspere was one, played at his theatres. 
143 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

During this period the following plays with 
Shakespearian titles were produced; 

March 3 1592 Henry VI, a new play 

May 14 " Harey V 

J any 23 1593 Titus Ondronicus, new 

April 8 1594 Kinge Leare 

June 9 " Hamlet 

" 11 " Tamynge of a Shrowe 

From a large number of similar entries, 
the following memoranda of payments made 
by Henslowe for the writing of plays are 
selected. Henslowe had his own ideas as to 
spelling. 

"Lent unto Thomas Downton, to lende 
unto Mr Dickers and harey Cheat- 
ell, in earneste of ther boocke 
called Troyeles and Creasse daye, 
Aprell 7 1599 3 pds. 

"Lent unto Samwell Rowlye 1601 to 
pay unto harye Chettell for writ- 
tinge the boocke of Carnalle Wols- 
eye lyfe, the 5 of June 20 sh 
"Lent unto Robarte Shawe to lend unto 
harey Chettell and Antonye Mon- 
144 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

daye and mihell Drayton in earn- 
este of a boocke called the Rissenge 
of Carnowlle Wolsey, the 10 of 
Oct 1601 40 sh 

"Lent unto harey Chettell by the com- 
pany at the Eagell and the childe 
in pt of payment of a boocke 
called the Rissynge of carnell 
Wollsey the some of the 6 of Nov 
1601 10 sh 

"Lent unto the companye the 22 of 
May 1602 to geve unto Antoney 
Monday and Mihell Drayton, 
Webster, Mydelton and the rest, in 
earnest of a boocke called sesers 
Falle 5 pds." 

Henslowe did not buy any plays from 
Will Shakspere nor from Shakespeare, nor 
did he mention his name in any way. 

Furthermore, none of these plays for 
which he paid, are contained in a list of his 
stock of plays which he made out, dated 
March 3 1598. 

The actual fact of the practise of collab- 
145 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

oration being thus established, we may con- 
sider its application to the Shakespeare 
plays. And first, as to the richness of the 
Shakespeare vocabulary. 

Max Muller, quoting from Renan's "His- 
toire des Langues," said that while an edu- 
cated man rarely uses over three or four 
thousand words, the plays contain a vocabu- 
lary of 15,000 words. Prof. March makes 
the same estimate, while Prof. Craik and 
others place it at 21,000 words. Milton, 
with 8,000 words, is a bad second. 

Bartlett's Complete Shakespeare Concord- 
ance contains 1,910 pages, averaging about 
8.5 words per page, excluding inflections; a 
total of over 16,000 words. 

The authorised version of the Bible is 
said to contain 15,000 words in its vocabu- 
lary, an estimate which anyone can investi- 
gate by consulting a Bible Concordance. 
The Bible, it will be remembered, is com- 
posed of sixty six different books originally 
written in three different languages, and the 
translation of our authorised version was 
146 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

executed by forty eight different scholars. 
The substantial harmony of style in the 
Bible, notwithstanding the manner in which 
it was produced, is greater than that in the 
Shakespeare works. 

The question of the unity of authorship 
of the Shakespeare plays is thus definitely 
settled in the negative. No one man has ever 
been master of such an enormous vocabulary. 

If we consider the history of the plays, 
and the views of the critics as to their author- 
ship, we shall reach the same conclusion. 
For a rapid survey of the matter we may 
arrange plays in three divisions; old plays 
which have been retouched; other collabora- 
ted plays; and plays which have been at- 
tributed to different authors. 

Old plays retouched. 

Titus Andronicus. A fourth rate play of 
1584-90, published in 
1594, 1600, and 1611 anonymously. It was 
played at Henslowe's on Jany. 23 1593 as a 
new play. Jonson refers to it in the intro- 
147 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

duction to Bartholomew Fair, 1614, as then 
25 or 30 years old. The folio play contains 
one scene which is not in the 1611 quarto. 
Malone pronounced it to be not Shake- 
speare's ; Dowden calls it pre-Shakespearian, 
and Swinburne says that no scholar believes 
in the single authorship of Titus, and thinks 
that it contains some of Greene's work. 
Other critics have thought that Kyd, Dek- 
ker and Chettle had a share in it. 

1 Henry VI A fourth rate play of 1589- 
91, which was published in 
1600 as by Shakespeare. It was acted at 
Henslowe's on March 3, 1591 as new. Nash 
identifies it in 1592 by a mention of Talbot, 
who appears in this first play of the trilogy 
only. Dowden calls it pre-Shakespearian. 
None of the three plays are by Shakespeare, 
says Malone. A trilogy of old plays re- 
touched, says Brandes. Only touched up by 
Shakespeare, says Masson. The old 
Henslowe play altered, says Marshall. It is 
attributed by others to Greene, Peele and 
Kyd. 

148 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

2 Henry VI Composed 1591-2, published 

in 1594 as the "First part of 
the Contention of the two famous Houses of 
York and Lancaster," containing 2214 lines. 
The present play is a rehash; the 2d and 3d 
parts contain 3250 lines of the old plays says 
Boas. The authorship is disputed, says 
Masson. Probably in part by Marlowe, say 
Dyce and Dowden . 

3 Henry VI A fourth rate play of 1591-2. 

It was published in 1595 
as "The True Tragedy of Richard 
Duke of York," in 2311 lines. This is the 
play that Greene referred to in his Groats- 
worth, parodying the line "O tygre's heart, 
wrapt in a woman's hide." Dowden calls 
these three plays pre-Shakespearian, and at- 
tributes them in part to Marlowe; so also 
Swinburne. Malone does not think any of 
the three Shakespeare's. Meres in 1598 did 
not include Henry VI in his list of Shake- 
speare's plays. By some writers they are 
attributed to the joint labor of Greene, Peele 
and Kyd. 

149 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

King John Composed between 1591-95. 
It was published anonymously 
in 1591 as "The Troublesome Reign of 
King John." A dull old play, says Swin- 
burne. In 1611 it was published as Shake- 
speare's. The folio is based on the early 
play, but has about 1,000 new lines. Bran- 
des says that with fine passages it combines 
intolerable affections. The writer is un- 
known. 

Richard III Composed about 1593, and 
published anonymously in 
1597. On June 24, 1602 Henslowe paid 
Ben Jonson 10 pds. on account for writing 
of "Richard Crookbacke," a play on the 
reign of Richard III. Dowden says that the 
two Richard plays show Marlowe's hand, 
and T. W. White attributes Richard III to 
Marlowe. 

Richard II Composed about 1594 and 

published anonymously in 

1597 as "The Tragedy of King Richard the 

second, as it hath been publicly acted by the 

150 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Lord Chamberlain his servants," and in 
1608 with Shakespeare's name on the title 
page, "with new additions of the Parliament 
scene and the deposing of King Richard." 
In March 1598 Wilson, Dekker, Drayton 
and Chettle were writing "Pierce of Exstone" 
for Henslowe. Richard II was the play 
given on February 2 1601, just before the 
Essex rebellion, and the play which then dis- 
pleased the Queen. Yet three weeks later we 
know that Will Shakspere was playing be- 
fore the Queen, and therefore, that he was 
not suspected of being its author, Mr. T. W. 
White attributes it to Daniel or Drayton. 

Romeo and Juliet Composed between 
1591-6, and published 
anonymously in 1597. Dowden calls it a 
revision of an old play. The "Return from 
Parnassus," of 1599, not the one played in 
1601, contains this, says T. W. White; 

"Ingenioso speaking; Mark Romeo and 

Juliet; O monstrous theft; I think he will 

run through a whole book of Samuel 

Daniel." And Mr. T. W. White ascribes it 

151 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

to Daniel. Furnivall 4ates its composition 
in 1591, and the nurse's words; Act I, 3. 

"Tis since the earthquake (April 6 1580) 
now eleven years" confirm Furnivall's 
opinion. In London, after the Restoration, 
it was presented on alternate nights, as a 
comedy and as a tragedy. The orginal of 
the play was a Spanish comedy by Lopez de 
Vega. 

Taming of the Shrew A fourth rate play 

of 1589-97. It was 
published anonymously in 1594, with which 
edition the folio agrees, having meanwhile 
grown longer by some 1,000 lines. On June 
11 1594 it was played at Henslowe's. In 
1602 Henslowe paid Dekker for writing 
"Medicine for a curst wife," and Dekker's 
hand may be traced in the present play. 
T. W. White attributes it to Daniel or Dray- 
ton. Collier and Swinburne to Haughton, 
and Fleay to Kyd, revised by Lodge and 
Shakespeare. Masson acknowledges that its 
authorship is disputed. 
152 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

1 Henry IV A first rate play of 1597-8 
and published anonymously 
in 1598. This quarto is quite perfect, al- 
though Shakespeare is not named on the 
title page, nor in the registry. In the first 
edition Falstaff was called Sir John Old- 
castle, which was the name of a play written 
for Henslowe in 1599 by Monday, Drayton, 
Wilson and Hathway, and published the fol- 
lowing year under Shakespeare's name. 
T. W. White attributes it to Nash. 

Henry V Composed about 1598-9, and 
published anonymously in 1598 
as "The Famous Victories of Henry the 
Fifth." The original was a very old play, 
for Tarleton, who died in 1588, acted in it. 
It was played on May 14 1592 at Hens- 
lowe's, and is mentioned by Nash in the 
same year. It has been attributed in part to 
Marlowe, and also to Drayton and Dekker. 

Julius Caesar A first rate play of 1599- 
1604, published first in the 
folio. In 1598, as is noted by Stotsenburg, 
153 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Drayton published "Mortomeriados," con- 
taining a parallel passage to one in Julius 
Caesar, V. 5. On May 22 1602, Monday, 
Drayton, Webster, Middleton, "and the 
rest," were writing "Caesars Fall" for Hens- 
lowe. 

Hamlet A first rate play of 1602, published 
in 1603 under Shakespeare's name. 
An old and a very much revised play. In 
1591 Nash quoted the "to be or not to be" as 
known for five years, or as early as 1586. 
On June 9 1594 it was played at Henslowe's, 
This early play was probably by Kyd, says 
Sir Sidney Lee. Mr. Pemberton calls atten- 
tion to the fact that in the "Brudermord," a 
German version of the lost Hamlet, 
Polonius is called Corambio, which name is 
given to him in the quarto of 1603, thus 
showing that the present play is derived 
from the early play. 

Troilus and Cressida Composed between 

1601-8 and pub- 
lished anonymously in 1609 and as by 
154 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Shake-speare. In April 1599 Dekker and 
Chettle were writing Troilus and Cressida 
for Henslowe. Marston is thought to refer 
to this play in his "Histrio Matrix" c 1598. 
It was registered on February 7 1603 by 
Master Roberts. The prefatory Address is 
curious. The title page of the 1609 edition 
stated that it was "as acted by the Kings 
company at the Globe," but part of the 
edition has a different title. Now the pre- 
fatory address is, in part, as follows:; 

"A Never writer to an Ever 
Reader; News. Eternal Reader, you 
have here a new play, never clapper 
clawed with the palms of the vulgar 
by the grand posses- 
sor's Wills, I believe you should have 
prayed for them (the comedies) 
rather than been prayed &c." 

There was evidently some trouble about 
the copyright to the play, which should have 
been owned by Henslowe, since he paid for 
it in 1599. It would appear that it was 
inserted in the folio at the last moment, since 
155 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

it is omitted from the catalogue and is not 
even paged. The Irving Shakespeare attrib- 
utes the last act to Dekker, and Brandes pro- 
nounces the play to be decadent and of innate 
barbarism. 

Othello A first rate play of 1604-6, which 
was first published in 1622. In 
February 1599 Dekker, Haughton and Day 
were writing "The Spanish Moor's Tragedy" 
for Henslowe. The original was undoubt- 
edly a Spanish play. The scene is not Vene- 
tian, for there is no mention of canals; the 
people walk the streets as in other towns; 
they do not ride in gondolas. It was besides, 
impossible that a Moor should command a 
Venetian army. These considerations show, 
as T. W. White has pointed out, its adapta- 
tion from another play. 

King Lear Composed about 1605-6, and 
published anonymously in 
1605. An early play was registered on May 
14 1594, and was acted at Henslowe's on 
April 8 1594. Some of the finest passages 
in the quarto are omitted in the folio. 
156 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Thus it appears by consent, in most in- 
stances, of confessed Stratfordians, that of 
the 37. Shakespeare plays, sixteen are old 
plays retouched, and therefore, containing 
the work of several writers. 

But this is by no means the whole story; 
a number of the other plays are believed to 
be the product of collaboration. 

Other Collaborated Plays. 

Two Gentleman of Verona Composed 

about 1590- 
92, and first published in the folio. In 
January 1585, Felix and Philiomena, these 
being the names of the principals in "Diana 
in Love," a translated Spanish romance, was 
played before the Queen at Greenwich. In 
1598 Meres attributed the same story to 
Shakespeare. T. W. White quotes Upton 
and Henmer as saying that the Two Gentle- 
men is by some inferior hand, and Stotsen- 
burg thinks it the work of Dekker and Dray- 
ton. 

157 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Midsummer Nights Dream Dates from 

1590-97, and 
was published in 1600. Its authorship is 
attributed to Peele and Drayton by T. W. 
White. 

Merry Wives of Windsor Composed about 

1598-1602 and 
published in 1602. 

It was perhaps adapted from the 
"Jealous Comedy," of 1592. The quarto is 
a mere outline of the folio. Interpolated by 
a botcher, says Halliwell-Phillipps. It is 
a play of no literary merit, and its composi- 
tion has been ascribed to Dekker and Dray- 
ton. 

Alls Well that ends Well In its present 

form dates 
from 1597-1602, but is supposed to be re- 
ferred to by Meres in 1598 under the title of 
Love's Labor's Won. The plot is taken from 
Boccaccio's Decameron; only the comic 
parts, says Brandes, being of Shakespeare's 
invention. Swinburne assigns to it a second 
158 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

place among the Shakespeare plays, and 
Stotsenburg sees in it signs of more than one 
author. 

Measure for Measure Composed in 1603-4 

but first published 
in the folio. It was founded, says Castle, on 
Promos and Cassandra, a comedy by George 
Whetstone of 1578. In 1602 Heywood and 
Chettle wrote a play for Henslowe called 
"Like quits Like," an expression found in 
Act V. 6. of Measure for Measure. 

Macbeth A first rate play of 1606, pub- 
lished in 1610. Portions of it 
are Middleton's, says Swinburne. One of 
the most striking scenes is by a hack, says 
Lee. T. W. White thinks it is by Chapman. 
Certain confusions in the plot indicate the 
participation of more than one writer. 

Timon of Athens Dates from 1607-10, and 

first published in the 

folio. Only in part by Shakespeare, says 

Dowden. No scholar questions the part 

159 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

taken by some hireling in Timon, say Swin- 
burne and Lee. 

Pericles A fourth rate play of 1607-8, 
although Masson and others say 
that it may be as early as 1588. Dryden 
called it Shakespeare's first play. It was 
published in 1609, and is not in the folio of 
1623. Malone did not consider it to be 
Shakespeare's, and Masson suggests Greene 
as author. Says Jonson ; 

"Like Pericles, and stale 

As the shrieve's crusts, and nasty as 

his fish 
Scraps out of every dish." 

Only partly Shakespeare's, says Dowden. 
More than one author, says Swinburne. It 
was registered February 7 1603, but condi- 
tionally, not to be printed until permission 
was had from the owners. 

Cymbeline About 1609-10 but not pub- 
lished until 1623. The vision 
of Posthumus is mummery by another hand, 
says Lee. 

160 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

A Winters Tale Dates from 1610-11 but 
first published in 1623. 
It is attributed by T. W. White to Greene 
and Nash. Andrew Lang notes that Delphi 
is mentioned as Delphos, a place that has no 
existence, and that it is confused with Delos, 
thus locating the oracle on an island. 

Henry VIII Composed in 1612 and first 
published in 1623. In 1601 
Chettle was writing "Cardinal Wolsey's 
Life," and Chettle, Monday and Drayton 
were writing the "Rising of Cardinal Wol- 
sey" for Henslowe. The present play is 
partly by Fletcher, says Lee. It is by Fletcher 
and Massinger, say Poel and Dowden. 

Adding these eleven plays to the sixteen 
old plays retouched, we have a total of 
twenty seven plays out of thirty seven 
Shakespeare plays which are considered by 
competent critics, to contain the work of 
more than one author. 

Some of the remaining plays have been 
attributed, by one writer or another, for more 
161 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

or less substantial reasons, to other authors 
than Shakespeare. As follows ; 

Love's Labor Lost A play of 1585-91, 

which was published 
in 1598. An entirely orginal play; but the 
quarto states on the title page "Newly cor- 
rected and augmented by W. Shakspere," 
which does not of necessity imply that he was 
its author. In fact, the early date of its 
composition, which is fixed by internal evi- 
dence, such as references to the French wars 
of the eighties, almost certainly exclude the 
possibility of Shakspere's authorship. 
Brandes pronounces it to be by the author 
of the Sonnets. Reed gives it to Bacon, and 
T. W. White to Greene. 

Comedy of Errors Composed between 
1587-91 but not pub- 
lished until 1623. A vulgar parody of 
Plautus' "Menaechmi," probably by Greene, 
says T. W. White. A reference to the 
Spanish Armada as a recent event would 
appear to fix the date of its composition at 
162 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

about 1588. Stotsenburg assigns it to Dek- 
ker or Porter. In any event, if it dates from 
1588, it could not have been written by 
Shakspere. 

Merchant of Venice A first rate play of 

1594-6, published in 
1598. Inspired by Marlowe's "Jew of 
Malta," but from a Spanish original; the 
names are Spanish. T. W. White assigns it 
to Peele. 

2 Henry IV Composed about 1597-8 and 
published ^ anonymously in 
1600. Its composition antedates that of the 
first part, since in this quarto of 1600 Fal- 
staff is called Oldcastle, while the 1598 
quarto of the first part has already the 
change from Oldcastle to Falstaff. Both 
plays are attributed by T. W. White to Nash. 

As You Like It 1599-1600, and published 

in 1608. The story is 

taken from Lodge's "Rosalynde," of 1590, 

and T. W. White assigns the play to Lodge. 

163 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Antony and Cleopatra A first rate play of 

1606, published in 
1608, and 

Coriolanus 1608-9, first published in 1623, 
are both assigned by T. W. 
White to Bacon. 

Ternpest 1610-11, not published until 
1623, is attributed by T. W. 
White to Chapman. 

These eight plays bring the total num- 
ber so far described, up to thirty five, leav- 
ing only two; Much Ado about Nothing, and 
Twelfth Night, concerning the authorship 
of which I have met with no conjecture. 
T. W. White dismisses them with the re- 
mark; "authorship unknown." 

The foregoing review, brief and super- 
ficial as it is, ought to sufficiently exhibit 
upon what an insecure foundation rest both 
the popular idea of the unity of the Shake- 
speare plays, and that other wild theory that 
Will Shakspere, of Stratford, was the great 
author. 

164 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

We may rest assured that many of the 
plays are revisions of older plays, and that 
many others were composed at a date so 
early that it precludes the possibility of the 
Will Shakspere authorship. So evident is 
this, that inveterate Stratfordians have been 
obliged to suppose that our Will wrote some 
of the plays while yet in Stratford. We need 
not trouble ourselves to combat this theory. 

By the proved fact of collaboration then, 
we readily account for the knowledge of the 
classics, of law, medicine, seamanship, 
court life, foreign countries and all the rest, 
which has so tried the souls of the commen- 
tators. 

By some means the name Shake-speare ; 
please note not Shaks-pere, Shags-pere, nor 
Shax-per; acquired a commercial value, and 
the popular name was affixed to a variety of 
plays, just as stories or jests are fathered 
upon some noted raconteur of our own day; 
and it has remained, and will doubtless con- 
tinue there. But it is only a name — nothing 
more. 

165 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Jonson and Beaumont retained the pro- 
prietorship of their plays, notwithstanding 
the performance of them at the Globe by the 
King's players. But no claimant has ever 
appeared for the authorship of the "Shake- 
speare" plays, except a name. It has there- 
fore been said the "greatest of all our Eng- 
lish poets is but a name." 

Is is in fact, hardly too extravagant a 
conjecture to suppose, from the absence of 
unity of style in these plays, and from the 
way in which they were tossed into the folio, 
that they were neither more nor less than a 
part of the old stock of plays, and that 
Heminge and Condell owned them. 



166 



CHAPTER VI 

"Our English Terence" 

Voltaire found Shakespeare at once "an 
amazing genius," and "an indecent buffoon." 
"It appears," said he, in the prefatory matter 
to his drama of Semiramis, "that Nature 
pleased herself in assembling in the head of 
Shakespeare the highest degree of force and 
greatness, together with all that was most 
coarse, dull, low and detestable." S. G. 
Tallentyre, in her delightful life of Voltaire, 
explains this anomaly, which so perplexed 
Voltaire, by remarking that he did not know, 
as we do, "that many of the clowns, and the 
clownish jokes to which he took a just objec- 
tion, were interpolations and not Shakespeare 
himself." 

Both of these clever authors are in the 
right, but the world is still debating the 
question of who was the genius, and who the 
the clown. 

167 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

It is evident that Will Shakspere was 
known among his contemporaries for a 
writer of a sort; as early as 1592 Greene 
sneered at him as an upstart crow who fan- 
cied that he could bombast out a blank verse 
as well as the best of us; Davies called him a 
comic writer, ''Our English Terence"; and 
Jonson said that he was a bold thief who 
bought the reversion of old plays, and made 
each man's wit his own. 

More than this, when Jonson published 
his Sejanus, after it had been acted at the 
Globe theatre in 1603, with Shakspere in the 
cast, he stated in the preface that "it was not 
the same with that which was acted on the 
public stage ... a second pen had a 
good share in it . . . not to defraud so 
happy a genius of his right" he has replaced 
his own words in the play. It is not unrea- 
sonable to infer that the interpolater in this 
case, at whom this caustic shaft was aimed, 
was none other than Will Shakspere. 

Drayton, in an elegy to Henry Reynolds, 
said "Shakespeare, thou hadst as smooth a 
168 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

comic vein, Fitting the sock, and in thy nat- 
ural brain &c." And in our own day George 
Brandes, best of Stratfordians, wrote of All's ^f^ 
Well that ends Well, that only the comic 
parts were of Shakespeare's invention. 

The author of the Merchant of Venice, 
whoever he was, made of Shylock, and with- 
out doubt, intended to make of him a 
pathetic and tragic character. But the Shak- 
spere troupe gave the part to a buffoon. And 
Halliwell-Phillips has unearthed a tradition 
to the effect that Shakspere inserted some 
comic business for lago, and gave the part 
to a popular comedian. 

Given his character and reputation as 
we see them, it is a justifiable assumption 
that the perpetrator of these literary out- 
rages was Will Shakspere himself; and we 
may deduce from their occurrence, that since 
no author would permit such changes in the 
interpretation of his work. Will Shakspere 
was not the author of these plays. 

In adopting this theory we do not 
acknowledge that there is occasion to sup- 
169 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

pose that a conspiracy was in existence to 
deceive the world as to the authorship of the 
plays; or for supposing that, in the case of 
any great number of them, some great per- 
sonage was concealing his identity under an 
assumed name. The facts are that a large 
number of the plays were old; the work of 
writers whose names were known to those 
who were in the business of writing or of 
producing plays, and that they had been 
bought up by the Globe players and popular- 
ized. Shakspere's contemporaries give him 
credit for a talent of that sort. They have 
come down to us with his name attached to 
them because he was the latest editor ; because 
his additions had increased their vogue, and 
because Heminge and Condell, recognizing 
these facts, and not much caring what the 
original authorship might be, sent them 
forth as by William Shakespeare. 

It is contended by some Baconians, that 

Shakspere was entirely illiterate, and this is 

a most obscure subject, for, as a matter of 

fact, no specimen of his handwriting has 

170 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

come down to us, except half a dozen sig- 
natures, which do not sustain the claim made 
by Heminge and Condell that he was a ready 
writer, and which, in fact, the unbelieving 
assert, were written by the law clerks who 
prepared the documents to which they are 
appended. 

It is undoubtedly very disconcerting to 
be obliged to confess that no scraps of the 
handwriting of so — supposedly — celebrated 
and voluminous a writer should exist, and 
those who prefer to believe in the perfect 
illiteracy of the gentle Shakespeare are able 
to remind us that a large part of the work 
of the clowns was extemporaneous; Robert 
Wilson and Richard Tarleton were noted for 
"a quick, extemporall wit," and it is there- 
fore not impossible that their parts may have 
been thus devised, and later written down 
by others. 

Nevertheless, it is difficult to believe in 
the total illiteracy of William Shakspere, 
even if his parents and his children were 
totally illiterate. As a prominent member of 
the Company, acting in principal parts, it 
171 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

would seem that he should have been able to 
read; and in his business as money lender, 
hardly less important to him than the stage, 
he could hardly have succeeded without some 
knowledge of writing, although the public 
scrivener was always in that day, at the serv- 
ice of the unlettered ; nor could he have done 
what Jonson said he did without some learn- 
ing. The field is open for conjecture. 

My own firm conviction, based upon what 
we know, and upon the balancing of proba- 
bilities in what we do not positively know, is 
that Shakspere really did contribute some- 
thing to the plays, and that his contribution 
was the writing of the comic parts ; and that 
his contemporaries understood this to be the 
case. 

The Shaksperian touch can very readily 
be recognized in the plays; there is nothing 
anywhere else just like the Shakspere buf- 
foonery. When, at the performance of a 
Shakespeare play, some exquisite scene is fol- 
lowed by an irrelevant and grotesque in- 
trusion of the buffoons and drunken clowns, 
172 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

with the coarse haw-hawings and idiotic 
quibblings which so offended Voltaire, the 
auditor may confidently say, "here is the real 
Shakspere — Will Shakspere of Stratford." 
These fooleries delighted the groundlings of 
the day; they delighted Queen Elizabeth, 
whose taste was not of the most refined ; and 
they made the plays profitable. 

It is in the low comedy portions of the 
plays, and in them alone, that are to be found 
the Stratfordian allusions which identify the 
writer as a Stratford man. 

Students find many names and references 
in the plays which indicate that some War- 
wickshire man had a share in their composi- 
tion. 

Michael Drayton was a Warwickshire 
man; he was a successful playwright, and 
has been put forward as a part author of the 
plays; but he did not come from Stratford. 

The Taming of the Shrew. The following 

lines from the 
Induction to the Taming of the Shrew, con- 
tain several Stratfordian allusions. 
173 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

The drunken tinker says ; 

1. Sly. What, would you make me 
mad? Am I not Christopher 
Slie, old Slies sonne of Burton- 
heath, by byrth a Pedler, by 
education a Cardmaker, by 
transmutation a Beare-heard, 
and now by present profession 
a Tinker. Aske Marrian 
Hacket the fat Alewife of Win- 
cot if shee know me not ; if she 
say I am not XIIII d. on the 
score for sheere Ale, score me 
up for the lyingst knave in 
Christendome. 

The above lines, which do not occur in 
the old play of 1594, contain four references 
to Stratford ; 

a. Sly was a Stratford name, and al- 
though the drunkard in the old 
play was one "Slie," yet the 
name has been localised by the 
addition of the Christopher, 
174 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

since one of that name is men- 
tioned in Greene's diary in 1616, 
as living at Stratford. 

b. Burton-heath, or Barton on the 

heath, a few miles to the south- 
east of Stratford, was the home 
of Edmund Lambert, who 
loaned John Shakspere 40 pds 
on the Asbies property in 1578. 

c. Hacket is a name which still sur- 

vives in the neighborhood. 

d. Wincot, or Wilmcote, was near by. 

The Asbies' property of Mary 

Arden was situated at Wilmcote. 

The Tamynge of a Shrew was entered in 

the Stationer's Register on May 2 1594, and 

was published anonymously in the same year, 

as "A pleasant Conceited History called the 

Tamynge of a Shrew, As it was sundry times 

acted by the Earle of Pembrook his 

servants." It was played at Henslowe's on 

June 11 1594. But it was known before 

1594, since Greene alluded to it in his Mena- 

phon, which was published in 1589. 

175 



\ 
\ 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 



The old play contained the Induction, 
with a 'Slie,' but without the Stratford allu- 
sions. It ended by Slie being carried in in 
his own apparel and left outside the tavern 
door still asleep. The tapster awakes him, 
and he concludes that he has been dreaming. 

The old play is undoubtedly the original 
from which the play as we know it was 
developed. The folio of 1623 contains 1124 
lines more than the quarto of 1594. The In- 
duction alone contains 297 lines, while the 
Induction of the old play contained only 172 
lines. Fleay thinks that the original was by 
Kyd, remodeled by Lodge, and added to by 
Shakespeare. 

Now, if we turn to the Merry Wives of 
Windsor, we shall find further evidence of 
growth as the result of years of representa- 
tion. 

Merry Wives of Windsor. This play was 

first published 

in 1602, as "A most pleasant and excellent 

Conceited Comedie of Syr John Falstaff , and 

the Merrie Wives of Windsor, by William 

176 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Shakespeare, As it hath bene divers times 
Acted by the Right Honourable My Lord 
Chamberlain's Servantes, Both before her 
Majestie and elsewhere." 

It contained 1620 lines; the present play 
has 2701 lines; an addition of 1081 lines. 

Our folio play contains the following 
passages of interest in our present inquiry. 

2. Act I. Scene 1. 
a. Shal. Sir Hugh, perswade me 
not. I will make a Star 
Chamber matter of it; if 
he were twenty Sir John 
Falstoffs, he shall not 
abuse Robert Shallow 
Esquire. 

Slen. In the County of Gloster, 
Justice of Peace and 
Coram. 

Shal. I (Cosen Slender) and 
Cust-aloram. 

Slen. I, and Rato lorum too, 
and a gentleman borne, 
(Master Parson) who 
177 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

writes himselfe Armi- 
gero, in any Bill, War- 
rant, Quittance or Obli- 
gation, Armigero. 

Shal. I that I doe, and have 
done any time these three 
hundred yeeres. 

Slen. All his successors (gone 
before him) have don't, 
and all his Ancestors 
(that come after him) 
may; they may give the 
dozen white luces in their 
coate. 

Shal. It is an olde Coate. 

Evans. The dozen white lowses 
doe become an old coat 
well; it agrees well pas- 
sant, it is a familiar beast 
to man, and signifies 
love. 

• « • • 

b. M.Page. I am glad to see you, 
good Master Slender. 
178 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Slen. How do's your fallow 
Greyhound, Sir, I heard 
say he was outrun on 
Cots all. 

M.Pa. It could not be Judg'd, 
Sir. 

c. Falstaff . Now Master Shallow, 
you'll complaine of me 
to the King? 
Shal. Knight, you have beaten 
my men, kill'd my deere, 
and broke open my 
lodge. 
Fal. But not kiss'd your 

Keeper's daughter? 
The old play contains the dispute be- 
tween Shallow and Falstaff in an undevel- 
oped form; 

Shal. N'ere talke to me, He 
make a Star Chamber 
matter of it. 

Fal. Now M. Shallow, you'le 

179 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

complain of me to the 

Counsell, I hear? 

Shal. Sir John, Sir John, you 

have hurt my keeper, 

kild my dogs, stolne my 

deere &c. 

Among the changes which differentiate 

the new play from the old, is the elimination 

of profane expressions. This was the result 

of parliamentary legislation in 1605-6. 

Another is the addition of the reference to 

the Cotsall, or Cotswold games which were 

revived subsequently to the date of the 

quarto, and were held on the Cotswold Hills, 

near Stratford. 

The bashful lover, the riddles, and the 
allusion to Greene Sleeves, a popular song, 
are additions which were added from time 
to time. 

The white luces of Justice Shallow are 
also additions which were intended to touch 
up Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, four 
miles from Stratford, and the addition testi- 
fies to Will Shakspere's hand in the work 
180 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

of enlargement, for the old story of his deer 
stealing in Sir Thomas Lucy's park, and of 
his consequent punishment, still commands 
belief; although some writers, among whom 
is Mrs. Stopes, have endeavored to dis- 
credit it. 

Mrs. Stopes argues that, as Sir Thomas 
Lucy died in 1600, and the allusions to luces 
and coats of arms did not appear in the 1602 
or the 1619 editions of the play, it is im- 
probable that the reference so long after his 
death, could have been intended for him. 
Can such anger dwell in divine minds? ex- 
claims in effect, Mrs. Stopes. 

A second Sir Thomas Lucy was living 
in London in 1595, who died in 1605, and 
who was succeeded by his son, the third Sir 
Thomas Lucy, who created a Park at Charle- 
cote and who did make a Star Chamber mat- 
ter of a deer stealing affair which occurred 
on his Worcester estate. 

But Mrs. Stopes's attempt to disentangle 
the luces, the Lucys, and the deer stealing 
episode, are not entirely successful. In the 
181 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

first place, the play of 1602 contains the 
Star Chamber threat and the deer stealing 
charge, and was published prior to the com- 
plaint of Sir Thomas 3d; and in the second 
place, if the white luces and the old coat 
allusions did not refer to the Lucys, to whom 
did they allude? 

In 1592 on Sept. 25, Sir Thomas Lucy 
and other Commisioners, reported John 
Shakspere, the actor's father, as one of nine 
recusants who were liable to fines for non- 
attendance at church services. If the deer 
stealing episode ever occurred, this report 
could hardly have failed to revive the ancient 
grudge in the mind of Will Shakspere, and 
whether it did or not, it may have had a 
share in the imagining of Justice Shallow's 
old coat and white luces. 

Our interest in the matter, however, is 
limited to establishing the Stratfordian char- 
acter of the passage, in order to connect Will 
Shakspere with its composition. 

The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth &c. 
This play was registered on May 14, 1594, 
182 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

but it was first published in 1598, in black 
letter. It was, however, a much older play, 
since Tarleton, who died in 1588, acted 
the part of the clown Dericke in it. 
The play began with the trouble over 
the robbery of a carrier by one of Prince 
Henry's men, who is arrested. The Prince 
rescues him, and strikes the Chief Justice, 
in accordance with the legend. Then fol- 
low the King's reproaches, the repentance 
of the Prince, his assumption of the Crown, 
and the death of Henry IV. The new King 
throws over his old associates, and defies 
a French embassy. He besieges and cap- 
tures Harfleur, wins the battle of Agincourt, 
and the play ends with the submission of 
the French princes, and Henry's betrothal to 
the French Princess Katherine. 

A patriotic play, such as this, was nat- 
urally very popular, and it furnished the 
skeleton upon which three Henry plays of 
Shakespeare were built; Henry IV, parts 1 
and 2, and Henry V. We shall see to what 
extent it was expanded. 
183 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

1 Henry IV. This was first published 

anonymously in 1598. The 
text of the quarto was quite perfect. There 
were in all, eight editions before the folio 
of 1623, and all of them, except the first, 
attribute the play to Shakespeare. 

2 Henry IV. The first and only quarto 

edition of this play was pub- 
lished anonymously in 1600. It is thought 
to have been written before the first part, 
as, although Oldcastle was altered to Fal- 
staff before the first part was published, in 
1598, the name Oldcastle is retained in one 
place in the quarto of the second part. And, 
since Jonson mentions Silence in "Every 
Man out of his Humour," in 1599, the sec- 
ond part of Henry IV must have been played 
not later than 1598-9. 

The differences between the text of the 
quarto and the folio indicate that the quarto 
of 2 Henry IV represented the play as it 
was acted. The passages which are omitted 
in the folio are the Falstaffian scenes, which 
were liked by the actors because of their 
184 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

popularity, while some of the historical 
scenes are omitted in the quarto as tedious, 
and less popular than the comic scenes. 

Henry V. Although "Harey the Vth" was 
played at Henslowe's on May 
14, 1592, the first quarto was not published 
until much later; in 1600, and anonymously. 
It contains only about one half the number 
of Henry V's lines, but the speeches of Pistol 
are given in full. 

Pistol must have been a much liked 
character. He is named on the title page of 
the quarto of 2 Henry /F as ''Swaggering 
Pistol," and in the quarto of Henry V as the 
"Antient Pistol." 

The "Famous Victories" was "plaid by 
the Queen's Majestie's Players," 2 Henry 
IV and Henry V by the Lord Chamberlain's 
Company. 

The expansion of the "Famous Vic- 
tories," which contains but 1641 lines, into 
the three Henry plays, which contain, in the 
quartos 7629 lines, and in the later folio of 
1623, 9869 lines, testifies at once to the im- 
185 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

mense popularity of the subject, and to the 
manner of its development. Oldcastle, who 
in the old play, made a single appearance 
with but six lines to speak, became Falstaff, 
and his drolleries were infinitely extended. 
Bardolph, Nym, Pistol, Poins and Peto, the 
Irish, Scotch and Welsh captains ; and Shal- 
low and Silence, are all new creations and ad- 
ditions to the old play. 

The comic scenes in the three folio plays 
constitute about one third part of the whole, 
and are evidently the result of growth in re- 
sponse to the popular demand for amuse- 
ment. 

It is in these comic scenes, and more par- 
ticularly, in 2 Henry IV, that we find a num- 
ber of Stratfordian allusions. 

Thus we find ; 

3. 2 Henry IV. 1. 2. Falstaff is 
speaking ; 

a. Fal. He may keep his owne 

Grace, but he is almost out 

of mind, I can assure him. 

What said M. Dumbledon 

186 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 



about the satten for my 
short cloake, and slops? 
It appears that Dumbledon is a Stratford 
name. In the same play we have; 

b. Act II. 4. 

1st Drawer. What hast thou brought 
there? Apple- Johns ? 
thou know'st Sir John 
cannot endure an 
Apple-John. 
2d Draw. Thou say'st true. The 
Prince once set a Dish 
of Apple-Johns before 
him and told him there 
were five more Sir 
Johns; and putting off 
his Hat, said, I will now 
take my leave of these 
sixe drie, round, old- 
wither'd Knights. 
According to Miss Rose Kingsley, who 
has written upon "Shakespeare in Warwick- 
shire," apple Johns are still to be found at 
Dancing Marston. But it may have been a 
187 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

common expression, since Jonson uses the 
term in "Every Man out of his Humour," 
where one Shift says, "as I am a poor esquire 
about the town here, they call me master 
apple John." 

In 2 Henry 7 F. III. 2. the author makes 
another attack upon the Lucys in the per- 
son of Shallow; 

c. Shal. I was call'd anything : and 
I would have done any- 
thing indeede too, and 
roundly too. There was I, 
and little John Doit of 
Staffordshire, and blacke 
George Bare, and Francis 
Pick - bone, and Will 
Squele, a Cot-sal-man, you 
had not foure such 
Swindge-bucklers in all 
the Innes of Court againe. 

Fal. . . . This same starved 
Justice hath done nothing 
but prate to me of the 
188 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

wildnesse of his Youth, 
and the Feates he hath done 
about Turnball-street, and 
every third word a Lye 
. . . he was for all the 
world, like a forked Rad- 
ish, with a Head fantas- 
tically carved upon it with 
a Knife ... If the 
young Dace be a Bayt for 
the old Pike, I see no rea- 
son, in the Law of Nature, 
but I may snap at him. 

d, Andin Act V. 1. 

Shal. Well conceited Davy: 
about thy Businesse, Davy. 

Davy. I beseech you sir, to coun- 
tenance William Visor of 
Woncot against Clement 
Perkes of the hill. 

Shal. There are many com- 
plaints, Davy, against that 
Visor, that Visor is an ar- 
189 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

rant Knave, on my knowl- 
edge. 
Davy. I graunt your Worship 
that he is a knave Sir, but 
yet, Heaven forbid Sir, but 
a Knave should have some 
Countenance at his friends 
request. 
This William Visor was a neighbor of 
the Ardens at Wilmcote, and there was a 
John Perkes of Snitterfield, whose daugh- 
ter married Robert Webbe, a cousin of Will 
Shakspere's. Miss Kingsley says that Cherry 
Orchard farm, at Weston, two miles from 
Stratford, is still known as the Hill farm. 

Bardolph was the name of a Chamber- 
lain of Stratford in 1585-6, and a further 
coincidence which has been noted to account 
for the connection of Falstaff, or Oldcastle, 
with Bardolph, is found in the fact that a 
Sir Roger Cobham, or Oldcastle, was mar- 
ried to an Ann Bardolph. 

Poins and Peto are Warwickshire names, 
and Captain Fluellen may have had as a 
190 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

prototype one William Fluellen, who was 
one of the nine Stratford recusants already 
alluded to. 

Miss Kingsley makes much of an ex- 
pression used by Ulysses in Troilus and 
Cressida, III, 3, "The fool slides o'er the ice 
that you should break," as having been 
copied from "Foole upon Foole," a book 
published in 1600 by Robert Armin, Shak- 
spere's fellow actor; wherein the same ex- 
pression is made use of in relating an inci- 
dent said to have occurred at Evesham on 
the Avon, about ten miles below Stratford. 
There is of course, no ground for supposing 
that Shakspere was the only person who 
had access to Armin's book, or who might 
have made use of an expression which had 
caught his fancy. 

We meet the "poor Johns" again in the 
Tempest, II. 2., where Trinculo says; 

"A fish, hee smels like a fish; a 
very ancient and fishlike smell; a 
kinde of, not of the newest, poore- 
John &c." 

191 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

We will leave to those who believe in 
the identity of the author of Love's Labors 
Lost and of the Tempest, and in his immense 
growth in spirituality during the intervening 
years, the problem of explaining why the 
comedy of one of his earliest plays should be 
so artificial and scholarly, and that of one 
of his latest so indecently coarse. 

Other Warwickshire expressions and al- 
lusions are to be found in the plays ; in fact, 
it is said that nearly every English County 
is represented in allusions to local customs 
or dialects; but, with the exception of Sir 
Roland De Boys and to the Forest of Arden, 
in As you Like it, there are no other dis- 
tinctively Stratfordian references in the 
plays. And I will again remind the reader 
that as Michael Drayton, although best 
known to us as a poet, was a successful play- 
wright, and a Warwickshire man, references 
to Warwickshire in general may be attributed 
to him with equal probability as to Will 
Shakspere. 

192 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Such then, are the portions of the plays 
with which we may, with some certainty, as- 
sociate the name of Will Shakspere of Strat- 
ford, and we can recognize without difficulty, 
in similar scenes, the same hand elsewhere in 
the plays. 

It is difficult to conceive that Bacon, or 
any town-bred man, could have given us the 
Dogberrys, the Shallows, and the country 
bumpkins who wander on and off the scenes, 
often quite irrelevantly and without any 
part in the development of the tale. 

But Will Shakspere was of the soil him- 
self; he knew such people in the flesh, and 
was familiar with their thought and speech. 
He had the wit to reproduce them, and the 
reality of his characters, and the human 
nature in them, reached his audiences, and, 
much more than the fine literary qualities of 
the dramas, secured their success. 

He popularised old plays, and years of 
representation developed them. In time the 
original authors were forgotten by the many. 
193 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 



This, in effect, is what Greene and Jon- 
son said of Shakspere; and it explains the 
sort of success he had; and it also explains 
his personal insignificance and obscurity. 

In a word, it explains what has been 
called the mystery of William Shakspere 
of Stratford. 



194 



CHAPTER VII 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

We have now reached the extreme limit 
of solid ground, and, to pursue the subject 
farther, must venture upon the sea of con- 
jecture. 

Thus far we have been guided by facts, 
and by conclusions, more or less disputable 
it is true, but which nevertheless have been 
deduced not unreasonably from facts. We 
are tolerably certain that Will Shakspere was 
not the man to write genius into the plays, 
and that as a matter of fact, he did not, and 
never during his lifetime, was credited with 
having done so. It is also tolerably certain 
that most of the plays had a long history 
before they took the form in which they have 
reached us, and that many minds, both of 
writers and of actors, of which last Will 
Shakspere was one, had a share in shaping 
them. 

195 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

But if any one master mind, outside of 
the circle of writers previously herein named, 
impressed his greatness and noble personality 
upon the plays, research has failed to dis- 
cover him. He himself has been silent as to 
his share in the work, and history has been 
silent about him. Unlike Marlowe, Dekker, 
Beaumont, Jonson and the rest, whose work 
is known and recognized, that greater than 
them all lived unrecognized, and even to this 
day "the greatest of all our English poets is 
only a name." He is the Silent Shakespeare. 

What if their plots be absurd, impossible 
and without moral sense; the comedy vulgar 
buffoonery, and the ladies' hussies; all of 
which Dr. Johnson discovered long ago; 
what, if even as plays, the Shakespeare plays 
have been superseded by modern works which 
some of us may prefer to witness; as liter- 
ature the world has proclaimed them 
supreme. 

Who then was Shakespeare; did such a 
being exist apart from the collaborators who, 
as we now know, worked on the Shakespeare 
plays? 

196 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 



There must be only a few of the plays 
which do not bear testimony to the partici- 
pation of other hands, but it is also perhaps 
true that in nearly all of them there is some- 
thing of what we call "Shakespeare." 

Attempts have been made to determine 
the authorship sought for by internal evi- 
dence gathered from study of the plays them- 
selves; thus they have been attributed to 
Bacon because of a certain familiarity with 
legal terms; to Raleigh because of a similar 
familiarity with nautical terms, this among 
other things; and to Dekker and others be- 
cause of characteristics of style. 

But we might as well look for the author 
in the lists of physicians, or of naturalists, or 
of philosophers, for there is something of all 
these to be found in the plays. While in 
many places the frequent occurrence of legal 
phrases is such as to suggest a mind trained 
to their habitual use, there is nothing of this 
that any one of half a dozen of the collabo- 
rators could not have furnished ; and no spe- 
cial knowledge of the sea shown that any one 
197 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

of half the population of the island might not 
have possessed. 

Perhaps the most illuminating clue to the 
undiscovered authorship of the plays to be 
derived from their critical study is found in 
the conclusion that they are permeated 
throughout by Roman Catholic and aristo- 
cratic sentiments. This vein has been well 
worked by Mr. Geo. Wilkes, and, even after 
making due allowance for a fact which he 
ignored ; that in Shakespeare's day the stage 
was a target for the dislike of the Puritans; 
and that playwrights and actors retaliated by 
lampooning the Puritans in their plays; 
enough remains of an intimate knowledge 
of, and of reverence for Roman Catholic doc- 
trine and practice to make it clear that some 
one much in sympathy with that cult had a 
large share in the writing of some of the most 
beautiful passages in the plays. This fact, 
as Mr. Wilkes justly remarks, excludes 
Bacon from the list of possibilities. 

So, too, with the aristocratic tendencies of 
the plays; only a single one, the Merry 
198 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Wives of Windsor, is without its titled per- 
sonages; in only two, As you Like It, and 
Timon of Athens, do we find the poor well 
spoken of; and Mr. Wilkes describes this 
feature of the plays as servility to rank and 
contempt for the poor. 

Such a cast of mind is not incompatible 
with great talents, for Bacon's character was 
of this description. But it is a harsh judg- 
ment to pronounce upon the author, and by 
no means necessarily a true one. It is equally 
within the limits of probability that the writer 
held a genuine belief in the value to the 
nation of nobility, and a low opinion of the 
vulgar. If Carlyle could characterise the 
population of England in his day as "mostly 
fools," and the founders of the Constitution 
of the United States could feel such distrust 
of the people as that much-respected docu- 
ment evidences, surely an aristocrat of Eliza- 
beth's England may well be supposed to en- 
tertain similar, but intensified views. 

In the Nineteenth Century of May, 1906, 
Sir Sidney Lee called attention to the dis- 
199 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

CO very by Mr. James Greenstreet among the 
Domestic State Papers of Queen Elizabeth's 
reign, of two letters dated June 30 1599, 
from London to Antwerp and Venice, in 
which it is stated that the Earl of Derby "is 
busyed only in penning Comedies for the 
common players." 

Mr. Greenstreet published his discovery 
in the "Genealogist" in 1891 and 1892, in 
three articles, in which he attempted to prove 
that the Earl was the real Shakespeare. 

It is perhaps not strange that a devoted 
Stratfordian should not have thought it 
worth while to follow up the investigation 
which Mr. Greenstreet's death closed, and 
yet there are circumstances which lend con- 
siderable interest and importance to the mat- 
ter. 

The 6th Earl of the Catholic House of 
Derby was William Stanley, whose initials 
are the same as those of William Shake- 
speare. 

More important is the fact that the Stan- 
leys were undoubtedly in close touch with 
200 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

the Shakspere players. Ferdinando Stanley, 
the elder brother of William Stanley, was 
the Lord Strange who maintained the thea- 
trical company of which Will Shakspere was 
a member. This patronage was continued 
after he became Earl, and for a time after 
his death, by his widow, the Countess of 
Derby. From 1594 until 1617 at least, Will- 
iam Stanley maintained his connection with 
the stage. 

This is sufficiently interesting to justify 
some account of the house of Derby, and of 
the 6th Earl in particular; taken from the 
Stanley Papers, and from the above men- 
tioned articles of Mr. Greenstreet. 

The 4th Earl Henry Stanley, married 
Feb. 7, 1555, Margaret 
Clifford, who was descend- 
ed from Charles Brandon 
and Mary Tudor, sister of 
Henry VIIL He died Sept. 
25 1593, and was succeed- 
ed by his eldest son; 
201 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

The 5th Earl Ferdinando Stanley, who 
had borne the title of Lord 
Strange from 1572 until his 
accession, and who had 
maintained the theatrical 
company known as Lord V 
Strange's, and to which 
Will Shakspere belonged 
from about 1576-7. Ferdi- 
nando died within a year on 
April 16 1594, and was 
succeeded by his younger 
brother ; 

The 6th Earl William Stanley, the sub- 
ject of this sketch, who mar- 
ried almost immediately, on 
June 26 1594, Elizabeth 
Vere, daughter of the 17th 
Earl of Oxford. 

William Stanley was born in London. 
In 1572, says Mr. Greenstreet, he went to 
St. John's College, Oxford, with his broth- 
ers, Lord Strange and Francis Stanley. It 
seems that the younger brothers had dis- 
202 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

pleased the Queen in some way, for she 
writes under date of Dec. 6 1571 to Lord 
Strange that she "is sorry not to have found 
the like earnest good will to her service in 
his brethren." 

In 1582 he went to France with a pre- 
ceptor, and after three years to Spain, where 
he wounded his adversary in a duel, and had 
to escape to France in disguise. 

From France to Italy, High Germany, 
Egypt, the Barbary coast, Palestine and to 
Constantinople, where he was put into 
prison. After a romantic release, he went 
to Russia and to Greenland. 

In 1585 his father, the 4th Earl, with 
whom he was a favorite, was received as 
Ambassador to the Court of France; and 
Mr. Greenstreet thinks that he joined the 
English army in the Netherlands, as a sol- 
dier and comrade in arms of the Earl of 
Southampton. 

He was at home again from December 
1587 to July 1590, as may be learned from 
the records of Lathom House, one of the 
203 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

family seats. One or two extracts from these 
records follow; 

1587 — July 13, 14. Lathom. Leicesters 

troupe played. 

Dec. 17. Mr. William Stanley 

came home from Chester. 

1588 — Oct. 12. The Queens players 

came. 
1588-9 —Jan. 7 & 12. Derbys, or Lord 

Stranges players played. 
1589-90— Jan. 22. Sir Edward Fitton 
came at night. 
Sir Edward Fitton was the father of 
Mistress Mary Fitton, whom some suppose 
to be the Dark Lady of the Sonnets, and 
Mr. Greenstreet suggests that William Stan- 
ley may have been one of the three Wills of 
the Sonnets. 

The Stanley Papers refer to William 
Stanley as the great Sir William, whose 
travels and martial exploits are well known. 
He was abroad again in 1594, when 
Ferdinando died, and returning home, at 
once became involved in litigation with his 
204 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

nieces over his estates, which he found to be 
held by four Bishops for the use of these 
two ladies. 

He was made K. G. on April 23 1601; 
served as privy counsellor extraordinary 
from March to May 1603, and was appoint- 
ed Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire and 
Cheshire on Dec. 22 1607. His London 
residence was in Canon Row, Westminster. 

Chapman refers to him in his preface to 
the Hiad in 1594, as "most ingenious 
Darby." Addressing his friend, Matthew 
Roydon, he says; 

"But I stay this spleen when I 
remember, my good Matthew, how 
joyfully oftentimes you reported un- 
to me that most ingenious Darby, 
deep searching Northumberland, and 
skill embracing heir of Hunsdon had 
most profitably entertained learning 
in themselves to the vital warmth of 
freezing science and to the admir- 
able lustre of their true nobility 
&c." 

205 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

William Stanley's connection with the 
stage has been explained. 

Northumberland maintained a company 
of players which was known as the Lord 
Admiral's Company. 

Hunsdon's heir was George Carey, who 
succeeded to the title of Lord Hunsdon upon 
the death of his father, who was the Lord 
Chamberlain on July 23 1596, and con- 
tinued to be the patron of his company, 
known as the Lord Chamberlain's. 

Thus Chapman, in naming Darby, 
Northumberland and Hunsdon, was paying 
court to three famous patrons of the stage. 

In 1637 William Stanley surrendered 
his estate, ^reserving Ito himself only ^one 
thousand pounds a year, to his eldest son 
James, and retired to a country house on 
the Dee, near Chester, where he died in 
1642. 

James was the 7th Earl, the great Earl, 
who espoused the royalist cause, was taken 
prisoner after the battle of Worcester, and 
was beheaded on Oct. 15 165L 
206 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

Since William Stanley, at once soldier, 
statesman, courtier and scholar, was con- 
nectejd with the stage for many years; first 
by inheritance from his brother, and later 
by his own choice; was connected with the 
very company of which Will Shakspere was 
a member; and was himself a dramatist, 
busying himself in 1599 "only in writing 
comedies for the common players"; it is dif- 
ficult to escape the conclusion that he had 
a hand in shaping the Shakespeare plays. 

We may conceive of him as aiding in 
the revision of the old plays; adding per- 
haps, those fine passages which Will Shak- 
spere and his fellows sometimes omitted in 
representation in order to make room for 
their own buffooneries, but which have hap- 
pily been preserved to enrich all time. 

The writer has now executed his design 
of setting out the considerations which make 
for the rejection of the view that Will Shak- 
spere was our Shakespeare. Volumes might 
have been written — have been written — on 
the subject, and to treat it with any larger 
207 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

degree of detail would involve much repe- 
tition of that which has been written by 
others, and which is accessible to all. 

A brief summary of the argument may 

be useful, and will make a suitable ending. 

The record of Will Shakspere's 

life traverses the theory that he was 

a great genius. 

His contemporaries assigned to 
him an inferior and not altogether 
creditable role in the production of 
the plays; a fact to which very little 
attention has been given. 

He did not write the poems. His 
patron was not Southampton, but 
Lord Strange. In the Sonnets, 
which are undoubtedly by the same 
hand as the Venus, and the Lucrece, 
it is distinctly stated that the name 
under which they appeared, William 
Shakespeare, was but a pen name. 

There is no evidence, worthy of 
the name, that the plays were his. 
The one and only contemporary 
208 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

writer who distinctly identified the 
actor with the genius, namely Ben 
Jonson, did so only in his well-known 
ode, "To the memory of my be- 
loved." In the title, as well as in the 
body of the ode, he contradicted 
every other known utterance by him, 
to the number of half a dozen, on 
the subject. Every other remark 
made by him, or reported of him, 
shows that he did not like Will 
Shakspere, and indeed, regarded 
him as a very ordinary person. 

The history of the plays, and 
the internal evidences of style, fix 
the authorship in great part else- 
where. 

The occurrence of Stratfordian al- 
lusions only in the comic scenes; 
which scenes are usually irrelevant to 
the action of the drama, and distinct- 
ly differing in style, point to the ex- 
planation that these were the contri- 
butions of Will Shakspere. 
209 



THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 

The suggestion, first offered by 
Mr. Greenstreet, as to the genius 
who stamped his individuality upon 
the plays, plausibly answers the 
question "Who was Shakespeare?" 
by replying; William Stanley was 
William Shakespeare. 



Finis. 



210 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



DD0E07Tfl315 



